What temperature should ginger beer be laagered at?

Ginger beer is typically fermented at room temperature, around 70-75°F (21-24°C). After fermentation, it can be lagered, or stored at a cooler temperature, to help clarify and carbonate the beer. 

The ideal lager temperature for ginger beer is between 35-45°F (2-7°C). 

This will help to slow down any remaining fermentation and allow any sediment to settle to the bottom of the container, resulting in a clear and carbonated ginger beer. 

It is important to note that lager temperatures that are too cold can halt fermentation entirely, leaving the beer under-carbonated. You'd be gutted if you aged your beer for a long time only for it to be very flat when you open that first bottle!

Most brewers will appreciate that while the temperature is important there are other factors about conditioning a ginger beer to keep in mind. 

Conditioning ginger beer refers to the process of carbonating and clarifying the beer after fermentation.

Here are a few ways to condition ginger beer:

Bottle conditioning: This method involves adding a small amount of sugar to the beer before bottling. The remaining yeast will consume the sugar, creating carbon dioxide, which carbonates the beer. This method is best for ginger beers that have completed fermentation.

Forced carbonation: This method involves adding carbon dioxide directly to the beer using a carbonation stone or a soda keg. This is a faster way to carbonate the beer but it's best to be used with a keg and a CO2 tank. It's not a popular method for ginger beer!

Kegging: This method involves transferring the ginger beer to a keg and force carbonating it with a CO2 tank. This method is best for ginger beers that have completed fermentation.

Cold crashing: This method involves refrigerating the ginger beer for a period of time to help the yeast settle to the bottom of the container, resulting in a clearer beer. Cold crashing is a way to make the beer clearer but it's not the best method to make it carbonated

Fining agents: you can use fining agents like Irish moss, PVPP, or gelatin to help clarify the beer but it's not necessary for most ginger beers.

Using gypsum salt to increase bitterness and reduce ph levels

Using Gypsum to make hoppy beers taste great

You may have heard that to lower the pH of your beer water, you can use calcium chloride, it works and works well but if you are looking to make a beer that would benefit from a bit of bitterness, gypsum might be the solution.

Gypsum's scientific name is calcium sulphate (CaSO4·2H2O) so you can see it's got something in common with chloride. Basically, it's another handy mineral beer salt (usually found in rock form but ground into a powder). 

It does do a few things for your beer. 

If you add it to your mash, it will help lower the pH. 

A second effect is that the increased sulfate content will help to accentuate the bitterness of your beer.  This is handy when using hops. 

A handy trick is that if you desire to increase the sulfate level to produce a more bitter beer enhancement but don't want to alter or change your mash pH level, you can elect to place it directly into the kettle . 

In doubt about the pH level of your water? Use a pH meter.

How much gypsum should I add to my beer to reduce pH levels?

Generally speaking, you really only need to change the pH if your water needs some assistance.

Getting your source of water analyzed will allow you to make a real judgment about how much gypsum to add, but frankly who has time for that? 

If you wish to increase the bitterness of the beer, you're going to use it anyway right? This is particularly the case if you need to harden the water as you wish to brew an ale or bitter.

Maybe that's a bit of a gung-ho attitude but whatever. That said, I did read an idea that pointed out that adding gypsum to water which has an unknown status is like adding salt to a meal you've never tried. 

In terms of adding gypsum, a lot depends on how hard your water is. If your water is low in sulphate and you're making a beer such as an IPA then adding about 7-8 grams of gypsum to a 5-gallon batch is probably all you will need.

When to add gypsum in the brewing process?

Gypsum is typically added to the brewing water during the mashing process.

Specifically, it should be added to the water before the malt is added, and it should be fully dissolved before mashing in. This allows the gypsum to adjust the water chemistry and lower the pH level of the mash, which can improve the efficiency of enzyme activity and the extraction of sugars from the malt.

It is important to add the gypsum to the brewing water at the correct time, as adding it too late in the process can result in a harsh, minerally flavor in the beer. 

How is gypsum used for hoppy beers?

Gypsum acts to suppress harshness and astringent flavours.

Gypsum is often added to hoppy beers to add a perceived dryness and enhance the hop bitterness. The sulfate ions in gypsum can enhance the perception of hop bitterness by adding a sharp, clean and almost puckering taste, while the calcium ions can help to clarify and stabilize the beer, and contribute to a dry finish.

Additionally, Gypsum can also help to balance the pH of the mash, which is important for enzyme activity and the extraction of sugars from the malt.

Brewers can take advantage of this to use large amounts of hops without contradicting or causing disharmony with other components of the hop.

Don't push it though, too much calcium carbonate will lay this balancing act to waste.

What is the 'Burton Snatch'?

If you're brewing wort or water features too much sulphate, you will get that rotten eggs smell which is sometimes known as the Burton Snatch.

This is why it is important you don't add too much gypsum to your brew. To be clear, in the case of using sulphate, this is the cause of the sulphur smell you may get a whiff of and not the smell of an infected beer.

The name 'Burton Snatch' comes from the history of beers brewed at the place of Burton-on-Trent, England. The water of that area was naturally high in sulphate and when used for a brew or two, excess sulphite would cause the whiff when beer was poured.

The snatch smell, if we can call it that, is now infamously tied to beers brewed using the region's water supply

Do I need to use gypsum if I am using malt extract kits?

You probably do not need to add gypsum if you're using a malt kit.

Given kits are designed to be the wort you need to make the beer you want to make, it seems unlikely given modern manufacturing standards that it should be necessary to add gypsum.

How to tell if your brew is infected by bacteria

There's a really simple way to tell if your beer is contaminated

Ready for this life changer?

Drink it. 

If it tastes like the scummiest thing you've ever put in your mouth, it's infected.

If it makes you vomit, it's infected.

If it smells like someone set off a sulfur bomb, it's infected.

Rotten eggs... well.

If you open the cap and the beer explodes like it has been shaken up a thousand times, it's probably infected. This happens as rogue yeast or bacteria has over-carbonated your beer, resulting in too much pressure building.

Such an explosion should not be confused with a beer bomb caused by the addition of too much sugar when you primed the beer.

Basically, a good rule of thumb is that if you really have to ask if your beer is infected, then the chances are it probably is.

You can, of course, do a visual inspection of your beer before you bottle it as well. What you are looking for at the top of the wort is the formation of 'pellicle' (or a yeast raft)- which is a collection of microbes hanging out on top of your beer.

This may not happen with every infection, however.

The pellicle formation can look a bit like this:

or even this:

Which is a real shame because it's not just the fact that your beer is ruined by bacteria or wild yeast commonly referred to as brettanomyces, it's that you've lost your time - it doesn't matter if you've used a kit or done a diligent boil, you have lost those precious minutes.

You've also lost a bit of cash, which can hurt a little, especially if you've gone and sourced that special wheat yeast from the brew shop or those homegrown hops that you drove 45 minutes to get from a brewing mate who swears they are the best he's ever grown.

So what did you get out of this?

Experience.

It's quite likely that user error caused the infection to occur so maybe there's a lesson here for you that you can learn:

ALWAYS

CLEAN

&

SANITIZE

YOUR 

BREWING 

EQUIPMENT

I learned from my screw up and have never had an infected batch of beer again and that was like three years ago.

Sure, it can be a pain to do the job right but if you want to have a beer that's right to drink, you gotta clean.

So let's talk about the causes of infection.

The most likely cause is as you've probably understood if you've got this far is that uncleanliness leads to infection. By giving bacteria something to feed on or hide in, you open yourself up to a higher chance of infection occurring.

So, clean your fermenter, brewing spoons, pipes, spigots, taps, mash tuns and whatever else you use on brewing day. There's many kinds of cleaning agents you can use (such as the famous Powdered Brewery Wash) but a bit of elbow grease with damn hot to boiling water will do you justice.

Then, sanitization is key. We have promoted sodium percarbonate many times on this site as we think it just does wonders and since we have adopted it, we've never had a problem.

The best part about using sodium percarbonate?

You’ve probably already got some as it’s found in ordinary laundry soak!

So on brewing - clean and sanitizing everything. Don't be lazy or your beer will be hazy!

The next time you'll want to think about bacteria is bottling or kegging day.

Yep, it's almost a case of literally rinsing and repeating.

Your keg and bottles must be free of any gunk and residue yeast. Given them a damn good clean and then use your sanitizer of choice.

In the case of bottles, my favourite trick is to run them through the dishwasher on the heaviest setting. First I rinse them with water to remove all the sediment etc and then they go in. At the Heavy Duty setting, the dishwasher will use the hottest water it can and that kills the bugs. I then store them in a clean drum under a blanket.

Then on bottling day, a quick soak in some sodium percarbonate solution makes things just right.

You can always tell if you haven't done this part properly because if in your whole batch of bottled beers one or two do not taste right but the rest do, you can reasonably assume the issue was with the individual bottle and not the batch as a whole.

This "mega Pellicle' was from a beer brew that was found to be infected.

That Rotten Eggs smell from beer

We mentioned that rotten eggs can be a sign of an infected beer. That may well be true but it is not true in every case.

If you have used a yeast strain that produces this kind of smell your beer is OK. If you open a bottle-conditioned beer too early, you might be able to get those 'eggy' tones.

If you let your beer condition for long enough, that smell will go away as the yeast will continue to work everything out.

If your beer's water is high in sulphate such as that water source infamously discovered at Burton-on-Trent, England then your beer may naturally have this smell as well - the so-called 'Burton Snatch'.

If however, your beer has bacteria that has contaminated your beer, THAT 'smell' is a sign your beer is ruined. 

How can you tell? 

Do the taste test and that will give you a big indicator.

If you make wine or cider, there is another risk vector for your brew. That is the natural yeasts that can be found in fruit that can wreak havoc.

Many cider makers will use Campden tablets to kill off any wild yeast and then substitute their own yeast more suited to the kind of wine or cider that they wish to make.