Ginger beer

Ginger beer recipes are perfect for you to apply your own finishing touches so you can genuinely say "that's my recipe". It is easy to modify a recipe & almost impossible to muck it up - Click through for more advice on how to make the perfect drop !

Ginger Beer

Our popular Old Fashioned Ginger Beer kit can be made as a soft drink or a 'hard' alcoholic ginger beer. The kit comes with  instructions and the recipe is designed to prevent exploding bottles & other problems often associated with "Aunt Myrtle's ginger beer!"

To make ginger beer you will need:

  • A 25 or 30 litre fermenter *
  • Enough bottles for 20 litres of ginger beer
  • Carbonations drops
  • Homebrew sterilizing compound *
  • Beer or screw top soft drink bottles

Fermentation Notes

 

Fermentation is the process where yeast consumes sugar and makes alcohol and carbon dioxide gas. Most yeasts work when the mixture is warm (say 15C to 30C). If the mixture stays warm, the yeast will continue to work untill the alcohol is up to about 15%. It produces a huge amount of gas at the same time.

When you are making wine or beer or spirits, this is what you want. When you are making soft drinks, you only want to use fermentation to make a little bit of gas to make your drink fizzy.

You also have extra sugar in your recipe to make your soft drink taste sweet. You do not want the yeast to use up all the sugar as it will remove the sweetness and the gas pressure in the bottle will blow all the ginger beer out of the bottle as soon as you open the cap or even burst the bottle. This is the reason you put your bottles in the fridge & leave them there. It stops the fermentation.

There is a little bit of alcohol in your soft drink but it will only be about 0.5% or less.

Because you are using yeast, there will also be some yeast sediment in the bottom of each bottle. You can shake the bottle gently & drink this, it is full of B group vitamins & it is good for you. If you don't want to drink it, pour the ginger beer very carefully and leave the yeast in the bottle.

 

Ginger beer recipes are perfect for you to apply your own finishing touches so you can genuinely say "that's my recipe". It is easy to modify a recipe and almost impossible to muck it up. If you alter some ingredients or add something extra, you will almost certainly make a tastier, more satisfying ginger beer.

Old Fashioned Ginger Beer

INGREDIENTS

Old Fashioned Ginger Beer pack

Blend #20 1kg

Dextrose 1kg

 

METHOD

1. Mix the Ginger Essence bottle, Yeast Nutrient, Stevia, Blend #20 & Dextrose with 4 litres of kettle boiled hot water in your clean and sanitized fermenter.

( DO NOT ADD THE YEAST YET)

 

2. Bring the volume of your brew to a final volume of 19 litres with COLD water. Stir well.  Add the yeast when the temperature is around 25°C. Brew between 18—24 °C

 

OPTIONS

Dry style Ginger Beer - Reduce or omit the Stevia

Zingy Ginger Beer  - Add ginger “bite” by soaking 3 teaspoons of freshly grated ginger in half a cup of brandy for 3 hoursand then straining this into the fermenter BEFORE adding the yeast.