This week’s post of Pub Pondering is a sort of mix of College Kitchen and How-to Girl
Can’t afford beer? Make your own!
Have you ever wanted to experiment with brewing, but you don’t have the time, money or patience for making beer? Here’s a fizzy, sour recipe punctuated with a spicy kick of ginger – that’s fast, easy and low-budget.
Ginger beer usually has about the same alcohol content as beer – it’s basically a soda with alcohol in it (Depending on how much sugar you feed the yeast, it can go up to around 10%. Above that the alcohol will kill the yeast, depending on the yeast you use).
Recipe:
- 2 liter bottle
- a balloon (optional)
- cup of ginger root, grated, juiced or minced
- 1
- 3/4 cup of sugar
- Fresh lemon juice (stops from beverage from turning into vinegar)
- 1/2 tablespoon of brewer’s yeast (champagne yeast for better results)
Fill the bottle up most of the way and mix in the ingredients. Be sure you leave a few inches of space in the bottle for the carbonation to build up. Next, seal the opening of the bottle and leave it in room temperature to ferment for about two weeks. During this time you will have two tasks:
- Allowing the carbonation to escape from the bottle
- Feeding the yeast sugar.
When yeast feeds on sugar, the two byproducts are alcohol and carbon dioxide. Add sugar to the bottle when the carbonation process seems to be slowing. When you feel the carbonation is building up too much, be sure to uncap the bottle to release the air. A convenient way for indicating carbonation buildup is sealing the bottle with a balloon instead of a cap. Taste to test the progress and when ready, store your ginger beer in the fridge and the yeast will become inactive. Try experimenting by adding brown sugar, cayenne pepper, cream of tartar, lemons, limes, cloves and whatever you can think of. The goal is to keep the acidity from overwhelming the taste by smoothing it out with other flavors. Finally, be careful whenever opening the pressurized bottle and enjoy a refreshing gingery blend!
Another way to increase the alcohol content (and flavor, in case you don’t really care for the stark and, in my opinion, deliciousness that the ginger root produces) is to add it in place of club soda, or something of the like in your favorite cocktail.