Credit and permission to share: Kevin.
I remember (vaguely) trying to make ginger beer 45 years ago and remember bottles of ginger beer / ale in my grandmother's house my grandfather made. Corked and tied with string.
Anyway, here’s the ginger recipe.
You will need:
A jar.
I used a small lidded jar to keep my ginger bug in. I used one that was not completely air tight to allow gas escape but you do need to burp it daily.
A strainer.
A spoon.
Plastic funnel.
Filter paper, such as a coffee filter.
A large pan to hold 4 litres.
A measuring jug.
Something to decant your bug into.
Bottles, bottle caps and a bottle capper. I used old beer bottles – strong but you will need new caps and I recommmend leaving plenty of space in the bottle when filling.
Dried ginger powder.
Water.
Sugar.
2 lemons.
Day 1
Boil 300ml of water.
Allow to cool.
Add to jar.
Add 4 teaspoons of sugar.
Add 1 teaspoon of ginger powder, stir well.
Place your ginger bug into the jar and leave at room temperature.
Day 2 and for the next 7 days.
Each day, add two teaspoons of sugar and one teaspoon of ginger powder, stir well.
You should start to see signs of life.
Day 8
Boil 3 litres of water.
Add 300 grams of sugar (increase / decrease depending on taste).
Add the juice of 2 lemons.
Stir well.
Allow to cool to room temperature.
Strain the ginger bug through the fliter paper into a separate container. Keep the sediment for you next batch.
Add the bug liquid to the water.
Sterilise your bottles and caps – I used boiling water.
Add the ginger beer to the cooled bottles with the funnel, leaving plenty of space at the top of the bottle. You can add extra sugar to increase the alcohol content. Seal with your bottle caps.
Leave at room temperature for around 2 to 4 days. I did not burp them to release gas and wanted a fizzy beer. This will increase the risk of explosion however. So store some where safe – I secured the caps with extra string and kept in a secure lidded storage container.
When ready to drink, put them in the fridge to cool and be very careful when opening as can be extremely fizzy/ can explode out of the bottle.
I reused the strained ginger bug sediment to make another one – you only need half of it so feel free to share or do what I did and make a double batch next time and repeat the initial bug process. Second time around I tried with half the sugar to compare batches.
It is an experimental process depending on your taste regarding amount of sugar and can be impacted by temperature.
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