| #17. |
| Published: 2025-04-20 [Sun] 11:21, by |
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Will be going to bed now. Leaving the lid on as loosely as possible for the next 18 hours, at least. Oxygen exposure is unfortunately inevitable, as my schedule prevents me from getting a balloon until tomorrow. |
| #16. |
| Published: 2025-04-20 [Sun] 08:03, by |
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Try to fill the bottle so there's only maybe .5 inches or 1-2 cm of air above the liquid. Too much oxygen in the bottle will result in off flavors -- you want as little oxygen as possible to be exposed to your drink. Oxygen is what causes drinks to foul up and once yeast get to work, they don't like it. What an airlock does, aside from letting CO2 gas out, is also keep a layer of Co2 above your hooch to protect it from oxygen. And if you're too poor to buy a balloon, just SET the lid on top without twisting. Or squeeze the bottle, screw on the lid, then unscrew until the bottle can expand again. Burping the gas every few hours is not the smart way to go about it. Short of buying real airlocks and a real fermenter online, these are what you should do if you don't want the bottle to explode and make a disgusting mess everywhere -- which will happen! At least with plastic, you only have to worry about the lid shooting off as pressure builds. If you were fermenting in a glass bottle you could have a lot of fun hunting down glass shards. not to mention the sticky mess... Fermentation is pretty simple. Clean bottle, some yeast and water, the right amount of sugar and whatever else, and an airlock. You'll get the hang of it. In the future I would recommend boiling the ginger with sugar together to kill off any microorganisms and waiting for it to cool before pouring it in your bottle and topping it off with clean water. Your test run should make something drinkable in 1-2 weeks even if it's not perfect. Once your ginger wine has finished fermenting, you can also speed up the aging process by putting it in the fridge for a few days, as cold as you can go without freezing. That forces the yeast and crap down to the bottom more. This is a process called cold crashing. Time is best but cold can help. |
| #13. |
| Published: 2025-04-20 [Sun] 05:39, by |
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Here's an image, a very rough ambient temp estimate is in the desc https://imgur.com/a/OCoYbJ9 |
| #1. Ginger Beer Concept |
| Published: 2025-04-15 [Tue] 05:43, by |
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Continuing from a discussion on giko: My plan is to test drive a simple fermented ginger beverage with the following ingredients/materials: 1. Grated ginger 2. Brewer's yeast 3. Water 4. 1-2 chili peppers, to taste 5. Sugar (which type?) 6. 2L plastic bottle So far I have heard that it is important to slowly release the gas in the bottle, and carefully monitor the pressure. What I imagine is an earthy, simple drink. Something to be enjoyed after a day's work, or savored with some deep-fried foods. Any suggestions? |