Ginger Beer - Second Attempt

A fellow brewer came up from Mexico on a business trip and I decided to make a small batch for him to sample. Since I was going to have a short turnaround, I decided to make a half-gallon batch, which worked out to a six-pack's worth.

Tea:
~1/3 lb ginger sliced
1/4 gallon (4 cups) water
Zest of 1 lemon
Zest of 1 lime
1/3 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup brown sugar (added at end of boil)

Process
As before I boiled the tea for 15 minutes and then cooled it for not quite 2 hours. With the volume being much lower, it cooled quickly. I then poured the tea into a bucket, straining out the solids. I added the juice of the zested lemon and lime as well as an additional 4 cups of water, pouring both through the strained solids. I pitched about 1/2 the packet of Red Star Champaigne yeast with 1/4 cup of water and poured the liquid in after letting it rest for 10 minutes.

I did not take an original gravity reading as I wasn't going to concern myself with the alcohol content of this batch.

I fermented the mixture for 4 days.

Before transfering the mixture to a bottling bucket, I added 2 6-oz cans of pineapple juice (1.5 cups) to the bottling bucket. I then syphoned the beer into the juice and gave it a good stir.

I bottled the mixture and then left them in the basement to carbonate. My plastic test bottle was hard after 1 day so I pasteurized the bottles and then let them chill in the fridge.

My friend didn't get a chance to taste the brew unfortunately. I gave him three bottles but he didn't have a chance to taste it before flying back to Mexico and during the flight, the bottles exploded in his suitcase. He did comment that he thought that the ginger smell his clothes gave off was nice.

I however kept three bottles for myself and I find that this is a nice improvement on the first attempt. The pineapple juice provides a good level of sweetness to balance out the natural dryness of the base beer without being too sweet. If anything, for my palate anyway, I think more pineapple (or other juice) could be added. But it certainly tastes good to me with a good little buzz as well. I'd guess it ended up around 3% like the first batch.

I'm thinking about letting the next batch go longer in the fermenter to up the alcohol content, even if it means losing a bit in the ginger.