How do you make ginger beer? I love ginger.
Ginger beer is live.....and I do mean live. I wasn't joking about blowing up next door's kitchen. It really happened.
So, with that
clearly in mind, brewing ginger beer is pretty straightforward, and it makes a lovely drink, it really does.
There are two methods, and you can either use fresh ginger or ground dried stuff. Up to yourself on that. The ground stuff is inclined to be hotter, while the fresh stuff is softer but I think the nicer version.
The quick method makes a drink you can have the next day. It's not meant to be kept, it will blow up; I repeat, It Will Blow Up! if left in a sealed bottle while it's still live. You
must release the gas every day until the bottle is empty....and I do mean empty.
I know I'm rabbiting on about this, but if it had gone off in Billy's hand it could have killed him, the glass was literally exploded into lethal shards that wrecked a kitchen.
The better method is to create a 'plant' and to feed it daily for a week, increasing the volume as you do so. This makes a real beer and is the better if you add malt to the mix....but malt's not always easy to find, and it can be expensive.
The Quick Method
Ingredients;
1lb or 450g of sugar.....plain granulated works fine, if you're after richer darker taste use something like soft brown.
1/2 oz yeast.....wine or beer yeast is best, but who has that to hand ? just use bread yeast, it's fine. A good baker makes a good brewer
1oz of Cream of Tartar
1.5 oz of Ground Ginger
I gallon of boiling water.
Method;
Mix all but the yeast together, and stir until the sugar is dissolved and the liquid cools to lukewarm. Then add in the yeast and stir.
Cover and let it sit until it cools down.
Take a sieve and line it with a couple of sheets of paper towels and strain the liquid through it.
Bottle and set aside overnight.
This recipe is nice cold, and good the next day, but it's live, the yeast will slowly eat up the sugar and produce alcohol....so that's the good bit, the bad bit is that it produces gas as it does so. The fizzy is desirable but it will not stop until all the sugar is used up and then it's not always such a nice drink anyway, so use this one up quickly. Just be careful opening the bottles. Days two and three are the nicest I think.
This post is getting rather long. I'll put up the Beer recipe in the next one.
M