Festive Drinks

As promised here is the recipe for the ginger beer I am making to have on hand for the festive season. This recipe came from the Simple Savings website.

GINGER BEER

Plant:
In a large jar place the following:

1 tsp brewer’s yeast
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp ground ginger
500ml warm water.

Stir these together and place in a warm place (for example, window sill). ‘Feed’ the plant with 1 tsp of sugar and 1 tsp of ginger every day for one week. Then plant is ready. Sediment from plant can be reused to start new plant without the addition of more yeast. Excess fluid can be returned to plant.

Ginger Beer:

1kg sugar
1.5L hot/boiling water
4.5L cool water
Juice of 2 lemons
250ml liquid from plant

Place sugar in bucket and pour on boiling water. Stir until sugar is dissolved. Add cool water and lemon juice. Stir in liquid from plant. Bottle. Ready for use after one week. Better after 2+ weeks.

To sterilize bottles I just clean thoroughly first with detergent (pay special attention to the bottle top and use a bottle brush), then rinse to remove all suds. I then soak in VERY hot water just before use. This seems to work well.

I will be making and bottling the ginger beer next weekend so I will do another post then.

The Duke also brews his own beer and we have a Soda Stream soft drink maker. We do not buy the flavouring but just make soda water to add to the lemon cordial that I make.

Having a selection of home-made drinks means that we do not need to spend as much money on drinks for entertaining.

3 thoughts on “Festive Drinks”

Have you ever used fresh grated ginger? I also wonder if it is possible to reduce the sugar a little bit? It looks like a great recipe, and since we are having the family around for a cold lunch with the afternoon hanging around the pool, I am thinking it will be perfect! Thanks for sharing it.

Africanaussie – I have never used fresh ginger but see no reason why you could not. I am not sure of how much you would use as a substitute.

Re the sugar: You could probably reduce it a bit without a huge difference in the finished product, however, I would still add the teaspoonful each day to the ‘plant’ as it is necessary to create the chemical reaction with the yeast. Perhaps you could use 800g rather than 1kg wen you make it up. I may do it myself this time.

The recipe is best if you can leave it in the bottle for 2-3 weeks so I would get cracking on setting up the ‘plant’. It only takes a few minutes. Good luck.