07/18/10 Ginger Beer Plant (bottled 07/25/10)

 
Ginger beer is one of those things that slowly grows on you. When I first had it the spicy hot mouth feel and fizzy finish almost turned me off of it right then. But over time and with a trip to Bermuda I came to appreciate the zingyness and decided to try an alcoholic version at home.

The recipe I followed was to start something called a ginger beer plant that you feed with ginger and sugar for several days before mixing it with a whole lot of sugar and water then bottling.
Here's run down of the instructions I found on the internet and in a book* with some of my changes:

8.1L spring water
Dried ginger
sugar
jar
cheese cloth
1 tsp yeast (I used Muntons Premium Gold dry yeast, will mention how it turns out come tasting.)

-In a sterilized medium jar mix 600ml of boiled water with 2tsp of dried ginger and 4 tsp of sugar.
-When at room temperature pitch in the yeast and cover with cheese cloth. I wasn't sure if anything else was needed at this step, all the places I could find instructions for making the plant didn't say. And it's not like the jar can be sealed with the yeasties eating away. Perhaps it would be better to use an airlock, but the jar I was using would not have been able to have one fitted.
-For the next 6 days 'feed' the plant each day with 2tsp of dried ginger and 4tsp of sugar mixing well and recovering (make sure that the mixer is sterilized!).
-On the 7th day, in a large pot, boil and dissolve 1kg of sugar with 1L of water, add about 120ml of lemon juice.
-Strain out the contents of the jar and set aside the solids while mixing the liquid into the pot and then add 6.5L of cool water.
-Stir well and then bottle into anything that was made to hold pressure as the ginger beer will be still brewing in the bottles while becoming carbonated.
-Half of the the solid stuff can be mixed with 600ml of water, 1tsp ginger, 2 tsp sugar and the plant can be started again. Either toss the out other half or give to a friend in need of ginger beer. 

I ended up having enough for 16 500ml PET bottles, which I have been keeping a close eye on everyday to make sure that they don't explode.

I'm a little worried about how it might taste, I took a swig of it from when I did the gravity reading and it was way too sweet with very little ginger taste. Here's hoping that it will even out in secondary. As for the gravity readings, the liquid from the jar was 1.016 and before it went into the bottles it was 1.044. Once 4 weeks have passed from the bottle date I'm going to crack one open and take another gravity reading to try and see what the alcohol levels might be like. Though I'm not sure how accurate it will be.

*The book that provided the base recipe was:
Home Brewing, Producing your own beer, wine and cider by Kevin Forbes.