Ginger Beer

The grocery store had a sale on ginger root again and I couldn't help myself.

The large root I had last time was only enough to make the candied ginger, but not for the rest of my ginger experimental recipes. So I bought 2 pretty big pieces, completely forgetting that we were moving to my parents soon and I did not have any time for ginger experiments. Now that we are here, I do. And I have a side kick. My brother Tim. And even better, they have a pretty large ginger root here already so now we have 3!

The ginger beer recipe I found calls for 1/2 cup of chopped ginger so we are still deciding what to do with the rest. Will it be Pickled Ginger, more Candied Ginger or "Ginger Taffy Part 2- The quest for more gingery tasting taffy that does not melt after being out of the fridge for 5 minutes" ? (See Ginger Taffy Part 1) I imagine the latter since the title sounds so catchy.

Any who, Ginger beer. Here's what you'll need:

1 Clean 2 liter soda bottle

1 cup sugar

4 tablespoons lemon juice

4 tablespoons lime juice

1/2 cup finely ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon bakers yeast (not brewers yeast)

In a medium saucepan, combine 6 cups water, 1 cup sugar, 4 tablespoons each of lemon juice and lime juice, and a half cup of finely chopped ginger. 

Bring these ingredients to a boil and gently simmer for 30 min. 

Remove the saucepan from the heat and allow to cool for 10 minutes.

Mix 3/4 cup warm water with 1/4 teaspoon  bakers yeast (not brewers yeast) in a small bowl and set aside. 

Pour 2 1/2 cups of cold water into the second large saucepan.

Add the yeast water and stir. Use a strainer to add in the mixture from the first saucepan. Stir well. After straining them, we put the ginger chunks aside and made candied ginger .

Use a funnel to pour the mixture into a clean bottle, leaving at least 1 inch from the top. 

(Note be careful to pour slowly! Our funnel drained too slow and we had an accident, so we decided to use a ladle to pour it through the funnel.)

Seal tightly and let sit at room temperature for 24 hours to ferment. 

We decided to leave my husband a note to make sure he knew we stole his Mt. Dew bottle to make our ginger beer.

After 24 hours transfer it to the refrigerator. It's ready to serve when it's completely chilled.

                       

It was not too bad. Very crisp and refreshing, a little less fizz than ginger beer from the store. Nice citrus flavor with a strong ginger kick. We may try a few adjustments in the future batches but I don't think this batch will last too long around here with all of the ginger fanatics.