Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Ginger Beer without Yeast

For the Ginger "Plant":
In a jar (Not metal!) place
1/2 cup Sugar
1 teaspoon ginger powder
juice of one lemon
1 pint/ 1/2 liter water.
Let this stand 3 days. Pour off 1/2 of the water.
feed this once a day for 10 days with 1 teaspoon ginger powder and 1 teaspoon sugar (it will start to bubble, fizz, and move around a bit!)

to make the gingerbeer ...(this is a big quantity recipe....so make sure you have lots of bottles on hand before you do it!):

Add 4 cups of sugar with 3 cups boiling water (you may boil some fresh ginger root with the water if desired) cool.
Strain the ginger plant through a cloth. Add the liquid to the sugar syrup.(keep the gingerplant residue in the cloth and set aside).
add juice of 2 lemons (4 Indian nimbu) and 25 cups cold water (aprox 6 liters). Bottle. (make sure you leave room for the beer to expand, do NOT fill the bottles all the way to the top or they will explode!)

Let mature for approximately one week or until ready. (depends on how hot the weather is) In order to stop fermentation you must refrigerate.



Keep one half of the ginger plant residue and put back into the jar. Add one cup warm water 2 teaspoons of sugar and 2 teaspoons of powdered ginger. Feed for one week, then you can make a second batch of gingerbeer.


*When I lived in Vrindavan I used to use 2L soft drink bottles. They are typically thicker plastic than water bottles, and take the pressure of the gas much better. Unless you are really expert and know exactly how much time you need to ferment (according to the weather of where you live) plastic is easier than glass bottles. With plastic, you can squeeze the bottle and check how hard it has become. When the ginger beer matures it creates a natural gas and this expands the bottle and makes it swell a bit. If you open one bottle and it is not fizzy enough for your taste, then let the other bottles continue to ferment. (one batch makes around 7 liters of ginger beer.) Enjoy!

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