With WY3864 coming back for this year’s fall private collection, I decided to brew a cinnamon & ginger spiced beer in the dubbel/BDS ballpark. I’ve brewed with cinnamon plenty of times, but I’ve never used ginger in beer. I’m looking for something in the spice cake/christmas cookie realm - sweet spice without a load of heat. Does anyone have any suggestions based on what has worked for them? I’m thinking of using fresh ginger root before racking to a keg, but I’m not sure how much to use (for a 3-gallon batch) and how to best prepare it.
I am planning a Christmas Beer based on a 2x Bock with Ginger in it. Though I’ve never used it, to get there I am planning to use Thai Ginger in Molasses Candi Syrup. They have a Thai Ginger syrup as well: https://www.cascadebeercandi.shop/product-page/thai-ginger-candi-syrup
I recently used their Toasted Hazelnut syrup in a Brown Ale that turned out very nice. Not overpowering with Hazelnut flavor but enough to make it interesting.
I used that maybe 5 years ago. Tasty, interesting…can’t say I got a ton of ginger flavor from it, but I liked it anyway.
A clubmate of mine has made a number of ginger infused beers and he advises to NOT use fresh ginger root. The problem is that you won’t know how strong it is. Dried, ground ginger is a more consistent and reliable alternative.
I use fresh gingeer and it works fine. The dried stuff is definitely more intense. I grate the ginger unpeeled and into the boil at 5 min before KO
I’ve used fresh, grated ginger with great results. I like 42 g (~1.5 oz) at flameout and the same a few days into fermentation. My experience is toy don’t get much flavor or bite unless you use it on the hot side, and you don’t get much aroma unless you have some on the cold side.
I spent a lot of time working on a ginger beer soda recipe (the thread is here https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=28696.0), and I got some similar results. I found that dried ginger was all heat with no flavor, and that a warm simmer got me the best flavor with some heat to match. Maybe a “hop stand” might be the best approach, and I can just taste every few minutes until I get what I’m looking for.
If it were me I would try what you are doing Eric but also add some finely grated ginger near the end of fermentation in hopes of capturing some aroma. I would say a couple of tablespoons done with a micro plane and making sure to capture the juice that creates. I might even grate right into the vessel.
I have made several ginger beers and I use about an ounce of thinly sliced ginger root per gallon. That gives a very ginger forward flavor profile so if I only wanted a hint of ginger flavor I would reduce that by at least half… or more.