Recipe: C.J.J. Berry’s Ginger Beer

• Crushed large portions of ginger 1oz
• Fileted lemon peels with no pith
• Belle Saison Yeast
• Yeast Nutrien

Add in pot and muddle together ginger, lemon peel, and 1lb of sugar & 1/2oz of tartar. Boiled 1 gallon of water and poured over onto muddled mix. Stirred until sugar was dissolved and placed in basement over night. Squeezed in lemon, activated yeast and yeast nutrient.  Pitched into the pot and let sit in the 3 seasons room for 48 hours. Room temperature got cooler, 60-70s. After the 48 hour period strained out the ginger and peals and put into a jug with screw cap. Next day heard the bottle squeeling at the seems, released the pressure. Let sit for 4 days.

The taste of this was way to lemony for our tastes. Going to attempt a second round without so much lemon in it.

Amber FIK #1

• 1lb Brown Malt
• 1lb 2-row
• 4oz honey Malt
• 1oz Mt. hood Hops
• 1oz Chinhook Hops
• Ale Yeast Whitelabs #WLP025

Heated water to 172 degree’s and put into mash ton for 60 minutes. Flushed with 6 cups of water, brought water to a boil added Mt. hood hops, after 30 more minutes added a pinch of moss and the chinhook hops. Cooled the wort, pitched the yeast.

Put into a primary for 2 weeks, secondary for one.

OG:10.033: FG:10.23

1.3% ABV

Bottling to be tasted next week.

It’s been a while since I last brewed, mainly in part because I moved from my old residence and finding a new one took far too long. So, on a whim when I had a friend over we decided to throw some things in a pot and and a beer or two. We’ll see how this turns out.

Ingredients:

• 18 Cups Water
• 2lb 2-row
• 6oz Red Wheat
• 6oz Light Munich
• 1 Cup Rice Hulls
• 1oz UK Target Hopunion hops, half at boil other half after 30 minutes
• 12oz clover honey
• Safle US-05 11.5g
• pinch of Irish moss

So it seems it’s much harder to keep a steady temperature with my new glass top stove. Steeped the grains in a muslim bag for 45 minutes target temperature of 160 varied by about 10 degrees, oh dear. brought to a boil and flushed the grains with 5 cups of water into a bowl and re-added to the pot. After 5 minutes into the boil added half the hops & added the honey. 30 minutes in I added a pinch of moss and the rest of the hops. After 45 minutes of boiling we chilled the wort to 60 degree’s, activated and pitched the yeast into the fermenting jar and united it with the wort. Tossed the airlock on and set in the basement utility sink.

Original Gravity: 15 Brix%

This has been fermenting quite well in the basement, a little bit of overflow in the airlock. Switched out airlock with a hose to a cup of water about 2 days into fermenting.

I thought I put an update on this, this recipe turned out really good. So much so, my friends and I replicated this brew. Hopefully it turns out as good as we remembered.

June 6th 2018

Remade with as FIK #1 Australian, used an Australian hops couldn’t find other hops. Tasted during bottling tasted pretty good and hoppy. SG:1.085 FG:1.040  ABV:5.3%

The beer I attempted earlier with orange didn’t have much of an orange flavor in the end. Giving lemon a try this time, should be in time for a nice outdoor grilling time. Hopefully it turns out well.

Ingredients:

• 2.4lb Pilsner
• 4oz Cara Munich I
• 6oz Red Wheat
• 1oz hops, half at boil other half after 30 minutes
• 2 Lemons
• 12oz honey
• 2 lemons
• Belgian soasin yeast
• pinch of Irish moss

Estimated OG; 1.115

Final gravity: 1.020; 12.47%ABV

Brewed:3/30/14 Bottled:5/14/14

Steeped grains at 150~2 for 45 minutes. Put grains into strainer and poured 2 cups of boiling water over them, let the water filter through the grains and dumped the additional water to the pot of wort. Brought to a boil and added half of the hops, boiled for 30 minutes. While it was boiling I shredded the lemon peal, then pealed the lemon like an orange set tossed rind. After the 30 minutes was up I added the moss, hops, lemon, squeezing the sections of lemon before dropping them into the pot. Boiled the last 15 minutes, cooled to 70F, put into the jug, pitched the yeast and set downstairs for fermenting.

I just keep throwing things in the pot to see how they turn out. I have a good feeling about this one, I don’t know why.

Ingrediants:

• 1.5G Water
• 1lb Pilsner
• 1.5lb Dark Wheat
• .5 Light Munich
• 1 oz hops half at boil, other half at 30 mins.
• Wheat yeast
• Yeast Nutreint

Estimated OG:1.084

Brewed: 3/30/2014

Steeped grains at 155~3 for 45 minutes, strained grains into another pot, poured 2 cups boiling water over the grains. Added that to the pot while it was coming to a boil. Added first addition of hops at boil, 30 minutes after added second addition.

This is the first brew with a fansy smansy scale. So it should be easier to replicated properly in the future if it’s good. But after brewing I already want to remove some of the mint, lol.

Ingredients:

• 2lb Red Wheat
• 8oz Crystal 10(smells amazing, btw)
• 1.5 tsp hops at boil(Hallertau)
• .5 hops at 30 mins
• Half a cucumber
• 2 mint leaf sticks(about 10 leafs)
• 1 Lemon
• 12oz clover honey
• Lallemand ale yeast
• 1 tbs yeast nutrient

Estimated OG: 1.102

Brewed: 3/30/14

Brought water to 152~2 added grains and shredded lemon peal of lemon. Steeped for 45 minutes. While that was steeping pealed the lemon like an orange and cut pieces in half, also cut cucumber in slices. Brought the water to a boil added lemon pieces, cucumber, honey, and first hop addition. After 30 minutes added second hop addition. Cooled, put into the jug for fermenting, added activated yeast, swirled, added yeast nutrient. Capped with airlock, and now it’s time to wait.

Ingredients:

• 2 Cups 2-Row
• 1 Cup Crisp Brown
• 1/4 Cup Crisp Chocolate
• 1/4 Cup Crisp Crystal 45
• 1/4 Cup CaraMunich I
• 3 Tsp of hops
• 5.5 Quarts of Water
• Pinch of Irish moss.
• Lallemand Munich Ale Yeast

Brewed: 3/8/14

I lost my notes so I’m not entirely sure of the quantities. I know I adjusted the chocolate/45/Munich to lighten up the beer. The idea was to pull those grains before the steep time of 45 minutes complete. I’m guessing I pulled the grains after 15 minutes. This ended up cooling over night covered before putting into the jug for fermenting. I pitched the yeast nutrient on top of the brew at the end after pitching the yeast in the brew. This seemed to cruise the fermenting. Bottled yesterday(3/29/14). Seems the first batch’s fermentation was stalled, and just started back up the past week so it’s still going. I’m very excited to give these amber ales a try. Though they looked very dark during the fermentation in the jugs it definitely seems to have the right color when bottling the brew.

Decided to try and make an amber ale, well ok, it was suggested.

Ingredients:

• 2 Cups 2-Row
• 1 Cup Crisp Brown
• 1/4 Cup Crisp Chocolate
• 1/4 Cup Crisp Crystal 45
• 1/4 Cup CaraMunich I
• 3 Tsp of hops
• 5.5 Quarts of Water
• Pinch of Irish moss.
• Lallemand Munich Ale Yeast

Brewed: 3/28/14

I steeped all of the above grains at 145 degrees for 1 hour, raised temp to 170 and removed grains. Added 1 Tsp of hops when the water started boiling. After 30 minutes added 2 Tsp of hops and a Pinch of Irish moss for 15 minutes. For the yeast I put it in 100ml of water and I also added yeast nutrient(recommended amount). I don’t think that’s what I was suppose to add it too. But oh well. After putting it into the fermenting jug, it doesn’t seem so amber as it seems porter/stout colored. For brown ale v2, I’ll take out the specialty grains out earlier, hopefully I can start that soon.

I finally dumped IDK what I’m doing batch v1. I can’t just leave that 1 gallon container empty! SO, I jumped into IDK what I’m doing batch v3. I added more Wheat/Pilsner more to what was used the first attempt. I also added an orange because I kind of wish for some warmer weather right about now. That just makes me think of summer.

Ingredients:

• 3 Cups Weyermann Pale Wheat Malt
• 2 Cups Weyermann Bohemian Pilsner Malt
• 1/2 Tsp of Hops German Hallertau Hops
• 1 Sliced orange
• Lallemand Munich wheat beer yeast

I brought 5oz of water to 145 +/-2, added the grains in a bag & the sliced orange, steeped for 45 minutes. Bobbing the grains every once in a while. Turned up to high until I got to 180 degrees and then removed the grains. Once I reached a boil I added the hops for 20 minutes. Then cooled to 70 degrees. Put the concoction in the jug ended up adding a little water, pitched the yeast. Discarded the oranges and trub from the bottom. Now waiting to watch the magic.

Bottled; 3/16/2014

Update: 3/29/2014

This batch was also quite light on flavor. During the brewing process the orange was very present in smell. After the fermentation though there doesn’t seem to be a trace of the orange flavoring. It’s better than the wheat v2 but I’m not sure if I’ll dump the batch yet or not, we will see I suppose.

Ok, so I might have jacked the first batch up a whole lot. Ended up scorching the mash and making gravy out of it. Did a little looking around the net and decided to go with what I was originally thinking and doing it in the mesh bag.  So this time around I hopefully did it right.

Ingredients:

• 2 Cups Weyermann Pale Wheat Malt
• 1 3/4 Cups Weyermann Bohemian Pilsner Malt
• 1/2 Tsp of Hops German Hallertau Hops
• Lallemand Munich wheat beer yeast

Brought water to 145 -/+2 degrees.  Steeped grains in Muslin mesh bag for 30 minutes. Removed grains and brought water to a boil(212 degrees). Added hops and boiled for 20 minutes. Cooled the batch and put it in the jug for fermenting, pitched the activated yeast into the batch. The color and consistency was much more appealing than the first IDK batch. Because I wanted to get this batch going I went to the local brewing supply store and picked up the yeast to do so. We will see how this batch turns out.

Bottled; 3/8/2014

Update: 3/29/2014

The end result of this beer was very light in flavor. I lightened the recipe from the original to keep the batch from turning into mush but I seem to have gone overboard. I will likely dump this batch, but hey that’s why I’m doing small batches after all!