Dougla_80 posted:
Jehan has a crappy ginger beer recipe on her site. I hope her cheese straws are better. Her recipe gives you ginger flavored water. Real Guyanese ginger beer has an alcohol kick and takes between 5 to 10 days to ferment and mature.
I make it all the time. I have some brewing right now. I do not do as she does to get the wild ginger bugs going. Her strategy is just the start if you do not have store bought gingerbeer bugs on hand.
if you need to make at least two gallons of the stuff and you do not have a shop where you can buy beer or campaign yeast, you do as she did up to the point where she was strained and reserve the liquids. You also do not need the cloves and the cinnamon, that is her flavor....I like.
You need to have boiled two gallon of water; preferably filtered to get rid of the chlorine ( kills the yeast) with about a pound of thinly sliced ginger. Add about a cup and a half of sugar per gallon water. Cool to room temp.
Add her mixture to it if you do not have ginger beer plant ( yeast bugs) or add about half an oz per gallon of ginger beer plants ( amazon sells it or a home brew store). Regular baking yeast works but the deep flavors are not there. Champaign yeast makes a high alcohol content ginger beer since they can eat sugar efficiently and not die in the resultant alcohol they produce.
Let this concoction rest for about 4 to 5 days in a dark place. If you use glass bottles to do this; do not cover tightly or it will explode. After five days or so the yeast will settle to the bottom.
Bottle, preferably in those flip bottles with top lids as in they use in bottling Grolsch beer. You can also get these from amazon at $2 per bottle or drink lots of Grolsch beer and save the bottles.
Fill to the neck, add half of teaspoon of brown sugar to each bottle and refrigerate. It makes about six bottles per gallon. Make sure you check the bottles daily and slowly release the carbonation. Refrigeration will not stop fermentation and if you forgot to check you will have ginger beer all over your refrigerator.
After another four or days you get a perfect adult drinkable ginger beer. Use within a week or you will have to keep checking the carbonation.