Earlier this summer a friend introduced me to his homemade ginger beer from a recipe he got out of Imbibe magazine. I’m not really a huge ginger beer fan but I really like this one and we do enjoy fermenting things so we thought we’d give it a shot.
Ingredients
4 oz fresh ginger, roughly peeled and coarsely chopped
2 quarts water
1 cup demerara sugar
1 Tbsp. molasses
3/4 cup fresh lime juice
1/2 gram champagne yeast (about 1/4 tsp.)
Directions
1. In a blender, pulse the ginger with 1 quart of water until roughly pureed.2. Combine the ginger-water, sugar, and molasses in a large pot over medium-high heat. Stir until the sugar dissolves. Remove from heat and let cool to just slightly warmer than room temperature.
3. Line a funnel with a flour-sack towel or a 4x layer of cheesecloth, and use it to strain the liquid in batches into a plastic 2-liter bottle, squeezing the towel or cloth to extract as much liquid as possible.
4. Add the lime juice and remaining water until the liquid level is about 3 inches from the top (this may not require the full quart). Sprinkle the yeast on top of the liquid in the bottle.
5. Carefully squeeze the bottle until the liquid comes right to the neck, then screw the cap on tightly. Let the bottle sit at room temperature for 12 hours, or until the bottle feels firm when squeezed.
6. Once the bottle is firm, transfer to the refrigerator. Keep the ginger beer refrigerated and drink within 1 week.
We made a few modifications:
- We doubled the recipe to make a gallon in a glass jug rather than filling a plastic liter.
- Used a half packet of Champaign yeast
- Created a yeast starter to kick if off.
- Used an airlock and sanitized equipment and jug per best practices.
- After it fermented for about 2 days I took a reading and tested the sugar and bottled.
The Result
A crisp, semi-sweet, gingerly, effervescent beverage that would go very well with some dark rum. The alcohol content is about 3.4%. It turned out quite dark due to the blackstrap molasses used.
