Brew 9- Ginger Beer... By the BOOK!

Home-made ginger beer from a ...plant?

An old family favorite introduced by my mum and perfected at university in a bath tub!

Grow your own living ginger beer plant by simply mixing up ground ginger, sugar, sultanas (yeast source) and water.

To establish a plant:
sultanas, ground ginger, sugar, water.

Plant:
6 sultanas (Initial yeast source)
1 rounded teaspoon ground ginger or crushed ginger 
1 rounded raw teaspoon sugar
1 cup lukewarm water

Method:
Mix all together in a jar. Loose cover (there will be gas) with the lid or piece of muslin or similar cloth and secure with a rubber band.

Each day for the next week, add 1 teaspoon sugar and 1 teaspoon ground or crushed ginger.

To make up the Ginger Beer:

For the syrup, mix together:

3kg of brown sugar
20l of warm- 22C water
* a 1:6 ratio
½ cup strained lemon juice
then:

Strain the ginger beer plant through two layers of muslin.

Pour the resulting liquid into the syrup and mix well.
* slow start to fermentation... pitched Lalvin EC-1118 (10g)
* I allow time for fermentation to use up most of the sugar producing a dryer ginger beer.

Bottling can be tricky! DON'T tighten the tops for a few days to allow excess CO2 to escape without blowing up the bottles. Use plastic bottles to prevent injury. I use a legging system.

The plant: In the spirit of family and community divide the plant left in the muslin into two halves. Place one of these in a glass jar with a cup of warm water to begin again. Then next day start feeding as before, that is, one teaspoon of ginger and one of sugar each day. The other half of the plant can be shared or discarded, or you can have two plants 'on the go'?