Making Ginger Beer

01/04/2009 at 12:51 · Filed under Beverages and tagged: beer, brewing, ginger, ginger beer, home made, homebrew

Ginger Beer, ahh the best fizzy drink going. Well that’s how I feel, and now I want to share the recipe that I think is the very best.

This has been an experiment for me and I hope that if you try it you will agree that has been successful.

I will give alternatives which may give quicker results which I will go over in a later post.

I love the idea of using just four ingredients.  Its so simple and is so natural too.

The ‘plant’ is a simple natural yeast culture grow in a glass jar from the ginger.

You will need the following to make the Ginger Beer.

2lbs of sugar

1 piece of fresh ginger about the size of your thumb

1 to 2 fresh lemon

1 sterilised jar the hold the ‘plant’

3 sterilised recycled 2litre  ‘pop’ bottles

Milton sterilizing tablets or liquid to  sterilise the  jar and recycled plastic ‘pop’ bottles

Muslin cloth to  strain the ‘plant’

So to start the Ginger Beer ‘plant’ you will need the following.

A piece of fresh ginger (a couple of inches in size)

2 teaspoons sugar

cooled boiled water (warm rather than cold)

1 sterilised glass jar and cover

Stage 1

Grate the fresh ginger and add to the sterilised jar

Add the sugar

Add the cooled water

Keep in a warm place but if possible out of direct sunlight.

Stage 2

Stir  a teaspoon of sugar into the jar  everyday for a week

It should start to fizz after a couple of days and will smell lovely, if it does not then it is a case of starting again, none of mine failed but it can happen.

Stage 3

At the end of the week the ginger should be strained through some muslin, collect the corners of the muslin and squeeze out the residue, put back into a sterilised jar and repeat the previous stage again for one more week.

Stage 4

Heat one pint of water and 1lb 8oz sugar until the sugar is dissolved.

Add five more pints of cold water

Strain the ginger as before, then add to the water and sugar mixture.

Add the juice of 1 or 2 Lemons

Grate another piece of ginger and strain through muslin and add to the water and sugar.

Taste the mixture at this point you can add more ginger if you want it a bit more fiery.

Bottle in sterilised plastic ‘pop’ bottles.

When the bottles have gone hard put in the fridge.

Its now ready to drink!

If you want to make another batch, save the  half ginger in the muslin mix with another grated piece of ginger  and put in a sterilised jar and add 2 teaspoons of sugar and cooled boiled water and the whole process begins again.

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