boozy home made ginger beer

I have diluted 2kg of sugar (half white and half brown caster) in 2 litres of boiling water, added juice of 1 lemon, a ginger beer brewing kit for flavouring, a few drops of ginger essence and mixed with 16 litres of cold water .Then added the correct yeast.

I do not have a hydrometer or whatever it is you use to take the SG.
I know this is a high amount of sugar but was hoping this would increase the alcohol level slightly as the last batch was not very boozy.
How long should I wait before bottling and priming ??????

Any takers?

Craig

Craig,

It really depends on how sweet you want the final product to be. Fermentation usually takes between 5-7 days. If your sugar gets all used up and converted to alcohol then you will be left with a dry taste.

There are a few tricks I use to boost alcohol content and slow fermentation, since I'm in a hot climate. I use a mix of corn sugar or syrup. I also find that raw cane or demarara sugar gives a much more flavorful finished product. I also use half bakers yeast and half Champagne yeast. Champagne yeast might account for the smaller bubbles and has higher tolerance to alcohol than bakers yeast. If you stick to natural ingredients you get a much more complex taste.

My last batch turned out to be about 6% abv. That was 5 days in primary fermentation and one week in the fridge after racking. Previous to that I made a real killer approx 9%. This is to strong to be enjoyable, just my opinion.

Started a batch yesterday and going to add some Thai chili pepper juice to give it some "throat grab" effect.

Here is my basic 6 USgal. recipe:

4.5Kg demarara sugar
500g corn sugar
10 lemons & all the zest
2 limes & all the zest
900g grated ginger
1 tsp bakers yeast
1 tsp Champagne yeast

I don't boil any ingredients, just thoroughly clean every piece of equipment you use and rinse with metabisulfite solution to sterilize be for using it. I also rinse the ginger root in the same solution after peeling it.

Good luck!

P.S.

In another 10 days it will be time for a Dark & Stormy.

Cheers

I'm gonna try this one. My last attempt was.... interesting but not at all satisfying.