Thread: Ginger Beer

Just did a search on the net... there’s a plethora of em, as you indicate. Spose it’s just a matter of comparing the recipes and pick one that takes your fancy.

Thanks for answering, I have made a ginger beer plant some years ago, just forget how to do it.

I do know it's so easy to have one that explode's everywhere, and I'm trying to avoid that if I can.

when my pop was alive he made the best homemade ginger beer a kid ever tasted but he sometimes fed the plant tooo much sugar and the bottles exploded.he always had the excuse of trying get a plant that really worked

Well here I am again, I'm still trying to get that recipe for ginger beer plant, I have tried a couple off the net without any success.

So what I want to know now is with the recipe i am about to try now it calls for 1 pkt of brewers yeast, so how much is in a pkt I have no idea, any idea's please?

This is the one. http://www.zeta.org.au/~nps/sca/brewing ... rbeer.html

I recently got a recipe from my Auntie...I will see if I can track it down.

That would be great Yeldarb, did you or your Aunty try it?

Found it...it wasn't looking good there for a while

I think it is the way that my Mum did it when we were kids (my Auntie is organised enough to have kept the recipe)...I can still remember long necks exploding in the shed. I haven't tried it recently (still trying to get time to start brewing beer again...obviously that is higher priority ) but my Auntie is a bit of a foody so I think it should be the one you are looking for.

By the look of it, it came out on the First Fleet Good luck

Ginger Beer Plant
6 sultanas
Juice of 1 lemon
2 tspn sugar
Tspn lemon pulp
2/3 cup cold water
Put all ingredients into a screw top jar and leave for 3 days.
On each of the next 4 days add one tspn sugar and 1/2 tsp ground ginger.
On the following day, strain and add juice of 1 lemon.

Ginger Beer
1 cup sugar
1 cup boiling water
6 cups cold water
Disolve sugar in boiling water then add cold water.
Pour onto the strained ginger beer plant.
Mix and pour into sterilised screw top bottles.
It will be ready to drink after about 3 weeks.
Makes about 7 cups.
If continuous supply is wanted, double the ingredients for the plant
and double the daily feed.
After straining, retain half the sediment, add 2/3 cup cold water
and continue to feed as above.

Hi there. Finnally dug out my recipe. I have made this one. Was really good. But after looking at the above recipe, mine looks like it has hardly anything in it. BTW, the sultanas are prolly providing the "Yeast" for the plant. My recipe relys on getting yeast from the air or just off the ground ginger perhaps. A whole packet of brewers yeast in your recipe sounds like a lot. Maybe they are refering to some kind of kit that has a teaspoon of yeast similar to a bread making kit. anyway, FWIW, here's mine.

Ginger Beer Plant.

In a large screw top jar place 1 1/2 cups of water, and 2 teaspoons each of sugar and ground ginger. Everyday add another 2 teaspoons each of the sugar and ground ginger. After 7 days the plant should star blowing bubbles. At this stage you can go on to make the ginger beer.

Ginger Beer.

Dissolve 4 cups of sugar in 10 cups of boiling water. Add 20 cups of cold water. Add well strained juice of 4 lemons. Add liquid from the strained plant. Bottle and leave for 14 days. (Sorry. Can't remember how many bottles it made.)

I use champagne bottles with wired down corks. (Its also fun collecting the bottles. ) You can get the corks from brewer's suppliers. I think plastic screw top lemonade bottles work too as they have that bumpy bit on the bottom that can absorb any pressure, rather than exploding. Beer bottles shoot their tops off. (DAMHIK. )

If you want to continue the plant just put half of the sediment from the plant back in the jar with 1 1/2 cups of water again and feed as before. Kinda works like a sour dough yeast plant. Just feed it every day. No need to take it for walks.

Opening the bottles should be done outside so corks can be launched into space.

DeElle,

Be careful, brewers yeast is what it means..(produces alcohol), be a nice one for the kids. Use bakers yeast as it doesn't produce alcohol only carbon dioxide (the bubbles).

Steve

thats pretty much it. the trick is to change the amounts to suite your tastes add more ginger if you want it hotter or more lemon if you want it more like lemon ade. saltanas can also be used as cultures. its interesting to note that the original yeast culture and fungus Saccharomyces florentinus (or the original ginger beer plant) is extinct despite what some might claim however there are some very similair types of fungus being preserved by avid ginger beer lovers and yeast banks the homemade saltana or baker yeast however is not one of them i dont know a lot about fungus however and i dont no if the original breed can be rebreed, i hope it can.

Originally Posted by replaceablehead

thats pretty much it. the trick is to change the amounts to suite your tastes add more ginger if you want it hotter or more lemon if you want it more like lemon ade. saltanas can also be used as cultures. its interesting to note that the original yeast culture and fungus Saccharomyces florentinus (or the original ginger beer plant) is extinct despite what some might claim however there are some very similair types of fungus being preserved by avid ginger beer lovers and yeast banks the homemade saltana or baker yeast however is not one of them i dont know a lot about fungus however and i dont no if the original breed can be rebreed, i hope it can.

Saccharomyces florentinus? Who'd have thought there was a specific ginger beer fungus. Amazing. How did it go extinct? I guess if people stop making it it dies out. So any ginger beer plant we make now really just takes pot luck on the yeast spores it happens to get from the air? What was so special about the original fungus?

G'day,

I made my first batch of Ginger Beer from one of the recipes found on here. It's fizzing up ok etc.... but why does it have a strong smell of lemons? (unscrewed a bottle at the 7 day mark to see what it smelt like). Obviously, I used lemons in the syrup as per the recipe but it just seems odd that the ginger beer smells strongly of lemon. It's currently in the bottled stage waiting for the 10 days or so.

Regards,

Adrian

Hi Adrian, what recipe did you use if you don't mind me asking?

It shouldn't smell like lemons, that's why I'm asking about the recipe!

I have tried a couple of recipe's to date, which haven't worked to my liking, had another plant going seemed to be doing well, I had a doily over the top of the jar and wouldn't you know it, the other day much to my disgust a fly had got into it, so out with another plant.

I am going to try that same recipe again to see how it goes. As soon as I strike the successful recipe I will certainly post it on here.

They are all pretty much the same, (minor variations in volume of final mixture or yeast v's organic sultanas to get the reaction going)...... 1 cup warm water, bit of yeast and daily feed the plant teaspoon of sugar and ginger. For the yrup, 28 cups water, 4 c ups sugar, 1 cup fresh lemon juice. All mixed with the 'substance' tstrained from the 'plant', bottled and let sit for at least 10 days.

I'm wondering...if I used too much lemon...or not enough ginger...or just simply haven't let the bottled ginger beer sit long enough....doesn't seem to have that "back of your throat bite" some seem to have.

Adrian