Ginger Beer recipes: What's your secret?

[Suzy_A]

Originally Posted by Kokatha man

where did you get that 10" f4 Neut on Vixen SXW mount: who did that to it , and was there any pain involved?

Not sure whether old Isaac would've approved of the procedure willingly!

OK, so I can't spill thaut will. Ocay?

Actually the 10" is off at the moment, I'm making a new tube out of 'poxy and carbon fibre, but it's coming along very slowly... I haven't got anywhere to make it where I live, so it's at my mum's house (well, dad's shed actually), 200 km away, so I only get to work on it when I visit. The old tube was a bit heavy....

[rally]

Back on Topic.

I now have a Ginger Plant in the makings with the enthusiastic help of my young son !

These are a really fun project for kids. (Big and small)
You wait for them to start bubbling and then you have to "Feed" the monster every day.

Thanks for the stimulus guys/gals.

Will report on the progress/success or otherwise in a few weeks.
Even if we didn't get any Ginger Beer, the whole activity has been worthwhile.

Rally

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Great to hear Rally. Which process did you use to start your bug?

[MrB (Simon)]

Originally Posted by Kokatha man

I suppose you use water bought from the supermarket, with dextrose or whatever .....

Heh, not directed at me, but yes I do.
Bottled water has a known mineral content which makes it easy to adjust it with more minerals to emulate water from different brewing regions of the world.
Water affects what grains you can use and the taste of beer so is fairly important. It's possible to make a true-tasting Stout with Dublin style water(VERY hard, lots of bicarb), or a good IPA(India Pale Ale) after "Burtonising" the water (Burton-on-trent), or a real Czech Pilsner (ala Pilsner Urquell) with extremely soft water - I've had to add some destilled/de-ionised water to thin bottled water out!(and bottled water is already pretty soft)
All that is irrelevant for GB tho, but it might be possible to get a 'cleaner' tasting GB with bottled water if your local tap water has high levels of salts and chlorine/flouride or whatever other crap it is they put into it.

Dextrose is fine in small amounts, <10% total fermentables. I use it for bulk priming when bottling. But I'm an all-grain brewer so all the rest of my sugars only come from malted barley.

Originally Posted by [1ponders]

Dry Ice. Now I have heard it all.

When I picked up some brewers yeast yesterday the shop was advertising some sort of "drop" (like a lollie apparently) that you can drop into the bottle to give it some fizz. Might look into that. Sound safer than mucking around with compressed CO2 or dry ice.

<snip>

...and the fluid has gone slightly treaclish in consistency, much thicker than the BY one. Is the fluid meant to go thickish like this? Neither is "frothing" yet though

Ah, carbonation drops. Coopers make them too(actually, coopers is the largest home-brew supplier in the world!) but others are available.
They're popular with home-brewers that don't bulk-prime.
Nice measured dose for each bottle = every bottle same carbonation level. One drop per stubby(330-375ml), two per king-brown(750ml).
Make sure tho that fermentation has completely finished before bottling and adding the drops.

While I've never made a GB, the treacle-ish GB sounds like a worry.
It might be an infection that sometimes hits brewers... is it stringy and slimy? If not it might be okay, if yes, it's definitely a wild yeast(lambic) or infection(Pediococcus damnosus causes stringy-ness).

Note also that there are hundreds (if not thousands) of brewers yeasts available at homebrew stores, most are cultured from breweries around the world. A couple(maybe 10 or so) of dried strains, the rest in liquid form.
Not sure if there are any available with GB in mind tho, experimentation is probably key. See WYeast, White-Labs and Brewtek.

[rally]

Paul,

Here is the recipe I chose - all credits to the original internet author.
Haven't managed to get the the family one (yet).

I'm nearly at the end of Part 1, but its going slowly - I suspect because the ambient temperature is low, but who knows the sultanas might have been "treated" !?

Rally

Propagating the plant (Part 1)

In a large jar mix the following items to form the basis of your ginger beer plant;
* 1 Teaspoon of lemon pulp
* 2 Teaspoons of ground ginger
* 4 Teaspoons of sugar
* 2 Cups of cold water
* 8 Sultana's
Once combined, the 'plant' must be left for 3 to 4 days, depending on climate to ferment.
Store the jar in a warm dry place to help this process along.

Feeding the ginger beer plant (Part 2)

Each day your plant must be nourished by adding the following items to the jar, in order to keep it growing;
* 2 Teaspoons of ground ginger
* 4 Teaspoons of sugar

The harvest (Part 3)

After feeding your plant for one week, it now becomes time to harvest the crop. You will now need the following items:
* A CLEAN plastic bucket
* 12 glass bottles with lids
* An old pair of womens stockings
In addition you will need the following additional ingredients:
* 4 Cups of sugar
* 4 Cups of boiling water
* Juice of 4 lemons
* 28 Cups of cold water

In the plastic bucket, dissolve the sugar in the boiling water, add the lemon juice and cold water.

The next step requires you to strain the 'plant mixture' into the bucket through a double layer of stockings, squeeze until the mixture is relatively dry.

Mix the entire buckets contents thoroughly and then bottle.

NOTES:

* When filling up the bottles, remember to fill each bottle to approximately one third up the bottles neck.
* For a little extra Fizzz... add 1 or 2 sultanas to each bottle before capping

Reviving the plant (Part 4)

Once the plant has been harvested, it is possible to revive it by separating the remainder into halves and cultivating it as detailed in Part 2 .

Each half must now be treated as a separate entity and in subsequent harvests a double batch may be made or a half plant may be given away to a friend.

This recipe makes approximately 11 bottles of Home Made Ginger Beer!

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Ripper thanks Rally

[Suzy_A]

Originally Posted by rally

Paul,

Here is the recipe I chose - all credits to the original internet author.
Haven't managed to get the the family one (yet)......

Propagating the plant (Part 1)

In a large jar mix the following items to form the basis of your ginger beer plant;
* 1 Teaspoon of lemon pulp
* 2 Teaspoons of ground ginger
* 4 Teaspoons of sugar
* 2 Cups of cold water
* 8 Sultana's
.....

Reviving the plant (Part 4)

Once the plant has been harvested, it is possible to revive it by separating the remainder into halves and cultivating it as detailed in Part 2 .

Each half must now be treated as a separate entity and in subsequent harvests a double batch may be made or a half plant may be given away to a friend.

DANGER! DANGER!! DANGER!!! UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD YOU 'REVIVE' YOUR PLANT BY SPLITTING IT IN TWO!!!!

If the original plants starts of at 0.5 kg, after 1 year of splitting it, the plant will have grown to 2,251,799,813,685 tonnes!

This would cover the entire Earth to a depth of over 200 metres!

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

I could think of worse thing for the earth to be covered in