[narcout]

Anybody ever brewed with ginseng?

I'm doing an Ginseng American Amber today for my neighbors.  I added to the sparge water 26 ounces of ginseng tea I made by simmering 2.25 oz of chopped American ginseng and 1.25 oz of whole spirit ginseng for an hour.

If it doesn't have enough ginseng flavor, I may consider dry-hopping with ginseng or making a very concentrated tea and adding it to the keg.

[majorvices]

I dunno, but if it helps me to remember WTF I said last night I'm going to start brewing with it all the time. 

[denny]

I'm pretty skeptical that adding ginseng tea to your sparge water will impart any flavor after boiling and fermenting since it will be such a small amount in comparison to the total volume of liquid.  Let us know if it worked.

[narcout]

That's definitely a concern. I may have to do some post-fermentation tweaking.

There wasn't a large volume of tea, but it was potent.  I took a small sip, and it was nearly undrinkable.

[astrivian]

Just a thought: Try brewing the full 5 gallon batch as normal next time, letting it ferment in the primary, then siphoning off 1 gallon into a glass jug. Add the ginseng tea to the 1 gallon test jug. This is what i do with my more experimental brews because 1) if it sucks i don't ruin the other 4 gallons, 2) it takes a lot less of the experimental ingredient to make a difference.

I have thought of using ginseng myself. As was mentioned, fermentation changes a lot and i wonder if it would destroy the "active ingredient" of ginseng so you wouldn't notice any effect on memory and energy. Not sure, just wondering. To be sure, you could add the tea to the secondary.

Like you said, the tea is almost undrinkable sometimes. I wonder if enough hops would counterbalance the flavor of the ginseng?

[narcout]

I just kegged this batch a few minutes ago, and I think I nailed this one.  It will taste a bit different after a few weeks of cold conditioning and carbonating, but the sample I just tried had a really nice balance between the hops (all cascade) and the ginseng.  The ginseng flavor definitely came through.

This might even surpass the reishi mushroom oatmeal stout I brewed for these guys last year.