Friday, April 13, 2012

Alcoholic ginger beer

No claims for originality here, except that I have metricated and reconfigured the amounts to fit my saucepan and fermenting vat.

To make 10 litres of  ginger beer: 
  • Use 0.36kg of peeled and grated ginger root, 2.1kg's of sugar, 2.5 lemons - juice, but also zest. 
  • Boil and simmer all ingredients in a large pan for 30 mins (enough to get really lovely ginger taste). 
  • My biggest saucepan is 5l, so I do all the ingredients in that much water then pour into fermenting barrel, and top up with cold water.
  • Make sure water is lukewarm and add 1 sachet of champagne yeast - I bought it on ebay for next to nothing.
Wait 7 days. Bottle, leave for further 7 days at room temperature. 
This is actually the most tricky part. I use plastic water bottles, and I make sure I squeeze them when bottling to allow room for expansion. I tried bottling in glass once and was lucky to escape with my life. 
After seven days chill and enjoy!

According to the original recipe the finished product will be around 4 - 5 % proof. Not sure if this is true, but it has quite a kick anyway.