How to make a fermented, low-alcohol ginger beer to sell in a bar?

Question

I'm about to make my first ever fermented ginger beer. I want to use it in the cocktail recipes of my bar, but it need to be at below 0.5% abv to be legal for me to produce and sell. My problem is that all the recipes I find are not suitable, because the final product must be always kept in a fridge and always consumed within 6 days, or the alcohol level may grow, as well as the pressure of the bottle, and I'd like to not have bottle bombs in my workplace.

Does anyone know if it is possible to make a almost total alcohol-free fermented ginger beer, which can be safely bottled in glass bottles, and kept room-temperature for a long period of time?

And how do famous ginger beer brands like boundaberg and old jamaica solve those problems?

Answer 1

The commercial brands terminate fermentation through pasteurization before the ABV gets above the FDA required 0.5%.

The only way I see to deal with this at home is to limit the amount of sugar so it the total ferment doesn't exceed 0.5%ABV. In the bar setting you could make up for the lack of sweetness with your simple syrup when making the cocktail.

IMO, the fermentation character doesn't seem worth the hassle. Seems better to make the ginger beer recipes you see but not to add yeast. Carbonate it with your water carbonator and call it good. Either that or just go back to buying Ginger beer.

Answer 2

The 0.5% Abv is an issue.

I think you're limited to adding a yeast and bacteria inhibiting preservative or pasturizing at the right point. Then force carbonating and bottling. Sanitation would need to be near sterile conditions after pasturizing. Normal sanitization should suffice if using preservatives, but would still have a shelf life based on preservative decay.

Answer 3

The commercial brands force carbonate their sodas rather than naturally carbonate them. If you kegged the soda, you could force carb them. The only way that I know to stop fermentation is chemically (Potassium Sorbate, for instance) but to get it mixed, you'd release the CO2 that you added with the yeast. Otherwise, I'd mix it up normally according to the recipe and use Soda Water instead of regular water, but that's likely to go flat too.

Answer 4

I would think the easy way to solve the issue is to use a demi-john or some container to build pressure and store the bottles back into the liquid for one week only. That gives the carbonation. use super wine yeast since you want it to bubble like crazy to get the carbonation, but only for one week until the bubbler is at a rate of one bubble every 3 seconds.

Next bottle it, to stop it turning to alcohol you need to proof the bottles and when really fizzy I think you are going to have to rebottle once to remove the little bit of sediment sludge in the end of the bottle. Then it won't explode if kept at 6 degrees celsius and it won't ferment any more. Basically you just make the yeast dormant.

All the muslims in my workplace and my kids drink mine. Unfortunately I can't give you the recipe. One day you will probably see "Kennys Ginger Beer" in the shops! :)

However, I've given you enough information above to explain how to slow everything down.