Making the perfect ginger beer ...

[KiwiJo]

I've have been diligently feeding my ginger beer bug for a while now and have brewed and bottled four batches of ginger beer.

For the first batch, I used brown plastic bottles purchased from the brewing shop. I foolishly left it in a cardboard box on the kitchen table (in the heat of summer) and woke in the early hours of one morning to what sounded like gunshots as the bottles exploded and made a very big mess in my dining room and kitchen.

When I made up the next batch, I also used brown plastic bottles, but this time I stored it in a big storage bin outside in the shade. This took longer to ferment, but was divine! Tasted wonderful and had just the right amount of fizz - sadly all consumed way too fast!

The third batch was brewed in brown glass bottles, bottles I have been saving from purchased ginger beer. This batch is ready now! I sampled one this morning and when I opened it, I noticed it had a slight aroma of sulphur. The earlier brew did not have this, yet it was made in exactly the same way and stored in the same place.

I have since brewed another batch and it too was made in the same way and stored in the same place. The only difference being that this batch is in the brown plastic bottles from the brewing shop too.

What would have caused the sulphur smell and is it safe to drink?

Looking forward to hearing from experience :-)


Joanne

[MKG]

What did you wash the bottles with, Joanne?

The slight sulphur smell is probably (well, almost certainly) a trace of sulphur dioxide. This, in itself, won't harm you unless you're allergic to it - in fact, it will improve the keeping qualities of the ginger beer. All commercial wines and most soft drinks contain sulphur dioxide for this very reason.

There's nothing in a ginger beer recipe (usually) which will produce sulphur dioxide, and ginger beer shouldn't have enough time to go "off", which leads me to suspect that it may have got in with the washing/sterilising stuff.

Mike

[KiwiJo]

Ahhh, thanks for that!

I just washed them using water (no chemicals at all), so it is probably residue from the commercially made ginger beer that was previously in the bottles. That would explain why this batch has the smell, but the earlier batch didn't. What is a safe chemical (or whatever) to sterilise them in? Obviously I can't boil the plastic bottles - they would melt! LOL


Joanne

[MKG]

Well, a damn good wash (not forgetting the caps) in soapy water would do 9 times out of ten - it's the tenth time that's the problem. But really, just about anything will do it. Milton (in case you don't get that in NZ, it's used for sterilising babies' feeding bottles) is good. The usual thing, ironically, is a solution of sodium metabisulphite (otherwise known as Campden tablets) which releases sulphur dioxide - you can get that from any homebrew supplier. Follow the supplied instructions and don't forget to rinse. You could also use any household disinfectant (diluted) but the smell and taste might be harder to lose in plastic bottles.

If you really wanted to be silly, a rinse followed by a soak in vodka would work - but what a waste

Mike

[KiwiJo]

Yes, we do get Milton in New Zealand. I used to use it to sterilise my babies' bottles etc when they were little. It's easy to buy off the shelf at the supermarket

Hopefully it's just a once-off problem and the rest of the batch won't have the smell!

Excellent! Thanks for that

[Budo1]

Last year we made a bigger batch of ginger beer for Christmas both myself and the OH love it- and the kids too... i decided to place it in a beer pressure barrel!! The results were fantastic, definately the best batch we have ever made. Stayed fresh with perfect 'fizz' no trouble with secondary sediment as the tap is set above sediment level... the kids could help themselves ad lib. was happy in the security that these barrels are set up to hold large amount of pressure and easy use of a tap. Will definately be repeating this year.

[tokolos]

I made 2 batches of ginger beer, both around 10 liters each using ground up fresh ginger, raisins, sugar and pre-boiled water.

The first batch was perfect good tasting and no sulphur smell but the second batch had a strong sulphur smell when opening the botlled ginger beer.
After investigating what could be the cause I realized that I used two separate brands of raisins for each batch. For first good tasting batch I have used raisins that had no preservatives added (Publix brand) and for the second batch I used raisins that had preservatives added . I found the culprit causing the sulphur taste....sulphur dioxide was added to the second batch's raisins. They put it into the raisins to preserve it longer.

Now all my ginger beer tastes perfect, I use fresh ginger and raisins without any preservatives added. Make sure you check the label for preservatives or any other additives and stay away from those.

[Bristolbelle]

can anyone recomend a good recipe for ginger beer that is easy enough for a very newbe brewer