did a batch of ginger beer using the hugh fearnley-whittingstall recipe of his site, came out well, very tasty, however not very boozy, so I tried again! this time I did it in a Demi John with an airlock, (also I added a little yeast nutrient) I had to keep letting the pressure off before so I figured if I was to brew it for longer this would be best, the recipe was 48 hrs brewing, I decided to give it 4/5 days to get it a bit more boozy, it was all going ok and it was bubbling away like mad when it slowed down this morning when I checked on it, I decided to bottle up tonight, I got home and it had totally stopped bubbling so I bottled it and had a taste, not good! taste likes vinegar! can anyone tell me what went wrong and what I did wrong? thanks Gregor.
homebrew advice needed
- Thread starter gregor-scott
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Sounds like you have some bacteria / mould or some such in there when brewing ...... Make sure you steralize all your brewing kit before you have another crack at it.
Ed
Ed
The yeast has probably eaten all the sugar. I'd try another batch but putting more sugar in, not necessarily all at once at the beginning because too much can knock the yeast back a bit. Some people like to get a good yeast culture going separately first, then if that tastes OK you can put it into the other (freshly prepared) ingredients and the large amount of yeast will most likely kill any other bugs before they get a chance to take hold. If/when you add sugar add it as a solution in water, boil it first and let it cool to kill any bugs then stir it in so it doesn't all sit at the bottom and kill the yeast by being too concentrated. None of this is rocket science and there are lots of forums with people that devote themselves to getting pickled on home-made booze. 
Make sure you taste it often while you're brewing it.
Make sure you taste it often while you're brewing it.
i use twin can kits from woodefords and their headcracker is nice at 7% abv
give the homebrew forum a look.friendly bunch.http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/
give the homebrew forum a look.friendly bunch.http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/
thanks for the advice guys. off for a 4 nighter on Thursday so will have to wait till I get back to try again, shame really, fancied taking home brew with us but I guess it will have to be a bottle of scotch instead!
Vinegar usually means the dreaded vinegar fly has got to it, but unless one has learned to swim it shouldn't have got through your airlock. Probably a cleanliness issue.
These days I'm really fanatical about ensuring all equipment, vessels etc are either scrupulously clean (everything) or scrupulously clean and then sanitised (everything likely in any way to contact the brew post-boil), and it makes a huge difference to the quality of the brew. I mostly use oxy-type cleaners, and starsan sanitiser. I particularly like starsan because there is no need to rinse after sanitising stuff. Hope this helps.
Been looking on the HFW site and cant find the recipe - could you post a link at all please....?
Many thanks, Paul
Sorry for the delay in replying, been in the woods for 4 days. I used the HFW recipe from the channel 4 website but it is also on the river cottage site, here's the one I used, it was very tasty! http://www.channel4.com/4food/recipes/chefs/hugh-fearnley-whittingstall/ginger-beer-recipe
