...ginger frog
...gopher beer & ginger bee
...ginger whale, ginger deer & ginger bear
Ginger Beer Recipe from meetmeatmikes.blogspot.com
Takes 3 weeks to make.
Makes about 25 litres.
Week One:
To reap 20 or so bottles of ginger beer - you need to make a starter or plant and 'feed' it for one week. So today - take a large clean jar. Add to it 2 tsp of ground ginger, 2 tsp of sugar, 1 tsp dried yeast and 2 cups of water. Mix it all up nicely. Cover with muslin (or other clean open weave fabric) and secure with a rubber band (or a piece of knotted elastic). Each day you need to 'feed' your ginger beer plant 2 teaspoons of sugar and 2 teaspoons of ground ginger. Do that for a week so it can sweeten and ferment. (Don't put a lid on your jar - the bubbling yeast might 'blow' it right off).
Week Two:
Next, you'll be needing an extra jar!
Today, you need to divide the week old 'plant' in the jar into two halves. Place half the mixture into a clean jar with 2 cups of warm water. Then tomorrow, start 'feeding' as before, that is, two teaspoons of ground ginger and two teaspoons of sugar each day for a week.
(The other half of the 'plant' can be given to a friend with this recipe - Or you can leave it in the original jar and have two plants 'on the go'. Feed each plant as detailed above.)
You MUST start collecting plastic bottles this week! We'll need about 20 1.25l bottles - or if you want less now is the time to adjust your quantities DOWN and gift some of that ginger beer plant to someone else! All bottles must be super dooper clean - so get a bottle brush and plenty of hot soapy water happening.
Week Three:
YOU WILL NEED -
A clean tub or huge clean pot - large enough to hold about 25 litres of liquid.
Lots of clean plastic bottles with lids - at least 12 one litre bottles - and double if you are using both 'plants' we made last week.
A big spoon to stir
Some muslin or other such fine fabric to strain your 'plant'
Sugar - at least 8 cups
Lemon Juice - at least 1 cup
A Funnel
Warm Water
Fancy labels
In the tub, mix 8 cups of sugar, 48 cups of warm water and 1 cup of strained lemon juice.
Now you should strain your ginger beer 'plant' through a couple of layers of muslin (this is the ginger beer plant that we divided last Saturday - if you're greedy like me and are making two lots of ginger beer do the sums accordingly - you'll need extra sugar, bottles and lemon juice!).
If you don't have muslin use another light, open weave fabric that will catch any chunky bits! Add the strained 'plant' liquid to the sugar/water/lemon mixture and stir well until very well combined.
Dispense into super-clean plastic bottles with the aid of a funnel and a clean tea-cup or other such helpful vessel and wait ONE WEEK. It'll be lashing of ginger beer all around then!
