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dpack

easy ginger beer with added barrel recipe

10 lts water
kilo white sugar
a lemon
250 gm fresh ginger

put sugar in pan with some of the water and the lemon juice and skin.
boil 10 mins to make invert syrup.

mince or blend the ginger(a little water helps in a blender).turn off heat and add ginger to pan ,cover and leave to cool.

add contents of pan to rest of water ,bottle into plastic bottles leaving a bit of space at the top.

add yeast or starter made from a previous batch.

squeeze bottle and cap.put in a warmish place.

every day loosen the cap (this avoids messy bangs) at this stage you will see why the space at the top of the bottle matters.

after a couple of days for the low alcohol version chill in fridge

after about a week ditto for the full version (approx 4%)

scaled up it works in a pressure barrel but as it does not keep long so tis better to make a few litres a week unless catering for a lot of people.

for long term tis best to ferment out to around 5% ,settle,syphon off lees and bottle with half a teaspoon of sugar (live bottled beer style).

that keeps for a few months
BahamaMama

I love ginger beer and that sounds very easy - I will give that a go, thank you!
Shan

I don't have any yeast from a "previous batch". Do I just bung in a sachet of some sort of beer yeast?
dpack

I don't have any yeast from a "previous batch". Do I just bung in a sachet of some sort of beer yeast?


i normally use multipurpose wine yeast if making a new starter( as i dont make beer at the mo due to space) so that is what i often have in the fridge but i would think an ale yeast would work ,lager yeasts are funny chaps about temp and do cool slow brews and are best avoided for owt but lager.
dpack

ps it can be done with bakers yeast but it seems much better with a yeast chosen for fermenting liquids which have a better alcohol tolerance and can easily ferment out quite quickly.
Shan

Thanks.
dpack

3 kg sugar and a mashed lemon 1.5 ltr water.boil for 20 mins add to brew tub
500gm ginger and a bit of water ,blend fine,boil sieve and add liguid to brew tub,return solid to pan with more water boil 20 mins repeat sieve and split ,boil again .repeat until pulp has no flavour usually 4 goes.

make up to 20 litres add vigorous starter made from last batch ferment til getting slow and tasting quite "dry" approx 4 days

syphon into 25 lt barrel,add 500 gm sugar made into syrup,top up with water.

ready when fizzy and not too sweet . a few days at approx 20c with my yeast

i dont know how long it keeps as mine keeps about a week then the next batch goes in the barrel Laughing


i know the above is a bit vague and could include temps etc etc but im still working on details and not everyone has temp control ,my yeast etc etc .once the details are sorted i will post a definitive method.

ps fast acting bread yeast is bad for ginger beer but is beginning to show some promise for ginger"champagne" but i need to refine the method a bit .ie get the last yeast out of the by settling and freezing it in one go
wellington womble

I wonder if I could scale it down a bit? I could do with a couple of litres a week, but can't possibly get through any more. My attempts at storing it last time were explosive!
dpack

I wonder if I could scale it down a bit? I could do with a couple of litres a week, but can't possibly get through any more. My attempts at storing it last time were explosive!


i recon with two 3 litre bottles you could do the first part in one with the lid loose and pour it, carefully to avoid the lees, into the second.the litre gap at the top is for the fizz when you vent the pressure to avoid explosions .
it still requires remembering to vent it and seems rather time consuming in the sieve n boil stage to do a small amount.

you can get a ten litre pressure barrel(they have a safety vent) which might be the easiest way to avoid excitement and cleaning.
i recon it should last a few weeks so long as it is gas tight .

when i did beer that would last 3 weeks quite well and the brew and settle took 3 wks so there was a constant supply with two larger barrels and a tub.
wellington womble

I don't mind the faff, it there's only me, and I don't drink every day so I'd never get through it! I do like ginger beer, though. Bungo

What about putting a baloon over the top of the bottle rather than a loose cap , and then seal with cap when ready . wellington womble

I'm so going to do that with the children at school. One of them is doing science (not mine, we are doing 'going green'. It mainly consists of painting recycling, sticking it together and then not recycling it!)
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