We’re having a week off, and it’s wonderful. It’s giving us time to do loads of odd jobs that have been stacking up, like clearing out borders, tidying up the strawberry patch and starting on the Christmas beer, which should be ready for bottling at the weekend.
At the moment, though, we sitting back with a glass of ginger beer each, which we’ve just finished syphoning from the demijohn. We often drink ginger if we don’t fancy anything alcoholic, but we’ve never tried making it ourselves. I don’t know why, as it turns out to be very simple. The ingredients are simple and cheap and only need to be mixed: there’s no cooking involved – just a bit of waiting.
The alcohol level – if there is any – will be very low in this drink, but obviously anyone who objects to drinking the stuff, on religious or other grounds, should bear in mind that as it calls for yeast and sugar and is fermented, a small level of alcoholic content can be expected.
| Ingredients 90ml boiling water 110g sugar 30g fresh root ginger 2 lemons 2 teaspoons of yeast 125ml (1/4 pint) of warm water 2 litres of cold water Equipment needed |
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Method
Place your sugar in the measuring jug and pour on the boiling water. Stir until it has completely dissolved and then pour this syrup into your demijohn.
Rinse out the measuring jug and fill with 125ml of warm water made by mixing one part boiling water with two parts cold water. Stir the yeast into this and then put it in a warm place for 10 – 15 minutes until a good head forms on top. Pour the head and yeasty water into the demijohn.
Peel and dice the ginger very finely and add to the juice of your two lemons. Mix well and pour into the demijohn, then top up with two litres of cold water.
Insert a bung and airlock in the demijohn and leave in a warm place to ferment. This will take about three days, during which it should bubble carbon dioxide through the airlock. It will be ready when the bubbling has more or less stopped.
Strain the ginger beer through a muslin gause if you have one, or a fine towel in a sieve if you don’t, and decant into bottles. Store these somewhere cold to stop the fermentation process, but keep a close eye on them and keep releasing the pressure so that they don’t pop if the fermentation process isn’t quite complete.
To serve, dilute the ginger beer with lemonade, at about one part beer to five parts lemonade.
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{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
That looks good! How long does it keep for? Is it hamper-giftable?
Anna x
I don’t think it will keep long. Most of the references I have seen to other people doing this online talks of a four-week shelf life. However, I suspect that if you were to cap it in beer bottles with proper tops and chill it well it may keep for longer.
My worry, though, would be that you then risk having it explode as the pressure continues to build up in the bottle. The two that we bottled yesterday have continued to react in the bottle, and although we squeezed the bottles as we screwed on the caps to remove all the surplus air and give them somewhere to expand into, they were hard and full again within half a day.
That would put me off giving them in a hamper as you would have to make sure that people would look after them. Instead, how about making some when you have people coming around and serving it up as a treat.
I did that back in the 80s. Mother and father made proper brew and let me do a bucket of the soft stuff for fun. We couldn’t give it away! I loved it, but it was quite strong, and we tried to force it on anyone who came within spitting distance of our house to no avail! It was quite funny though. I’m most impressed with all your brewing goodness!
A x
Made the above worked quite well. I remember my mother having a ginger beer plant which you can keep reusing, if anyones interested there is a receipe here
http://101things4.blogspot.com/2009/04/how-to-make-ginger-beer.html
How long does the whole process take until it’s drinkable?
I’ve read some recipes that say 24 hours and others that say six weeks, I’m assuming the longer it’s left to ferment the more alcoholic it becomes, I’m intending to make the non-alcoholic version though and I’m a little confused as to how long it needs to brew for.
We drank our ginger beer within a few days of having made it as we weren’t so worries about the alcoholic content. That’s because we were using it as a mixer.
Hey guys,
Tried out this recipe and it was a winner. I like my gingerbeer with some real kick to it though, so I added quite a lot more Ginger than you suggest and it turned out nice and refreshing. I was doing a mix of about 70:30 with Sprite and it worked a treat. All who tried it loved it. I am now brewing a larger quantity. I let the first one brew about a week or a touch more and then bottled it. Some gas still remained in the bottled samples but it wasn’t an issue. I actually found the longer you left it the better it tasted. Shame the first batch only lasted a fortnight with the masses here in Warsaw! Also it is best if you can filter out most of the yeast must at the bottom as it gives it a slightly bitter taste. But thanks for all the advice on here it is great. We are also working on some cider now…. hope that comes of.
Keep up the good work!
Garth
Thanks for the recipe, i enjoyed reading it. I made some Ginger beer at the end of last year, it was attempt number 2. Attempt number 1 wasn’t great but this time i achieved what i set out to do, which was create a fizzy, alcoholic, intensely ginger flavoured, knock your head off brew. A bit like the proper Jamaican stuff only stronger. Any way i blended a nettle beer recipe with a ginger beer recipe & it worked a treat. Cream of tartar, orange, lemon, lime peel & juice & rosemary were the things i included that i think made a difference (rosemary my idea). Anyway I’ve been wondering what the difference is between ginger beer & wine, any ideas?
Thanks again Matt
it sounds really good!!
i have a Food tech practical in school and want to make this along with another dish but i only have about an hour to make it so, How long aprox.do you think it will take to make it. without leaving it for 3 days cause i’m not going to do it all fizzy!
Becca x
The recipe says that you can use a bowl instead of a demijohn…….did anybody do this and does it work?
Just bottled my first batch using this recipe. Tastes a bit on the yeasty side, I used normal bread yeast as had no brewers yeast to hand would this be why. Otherwise followed the recipe. Going to give it another go and maybe use more ginger as cant taste the ginger. Had it in a deem jon for 6 days until it stopped fermenting. fermented like crazy to start with and bottled when the bubbles had stopped. Any advice. thanks
I followed the recipe, and it brewed for 4 days but the end product was sour, flat and didn’t taste of ginger at all. This was my first attempt at this stuff and I was wondering if it just went wrong because I’m a beginner and does practice make perfect? Are there any tips that anyone has for this recipe?
How much ginger did you use? Increasing the quantity will make it hotter, but could also overcome the sour taste.
The yeasty taste is almost certainly down to the fact that you used bakers’ yeast rather than brewers’ yeast. It’s well worth searching out some brewers’ yeast as the difference it will make to your finished drinks will be considerable.