Ginger Beer

It would seem that there are a million and one different methods to making alcoholic ginger beer at home, some of them seem relatively simple while others are rather complex and require a lot of lead up time (to make something called a Ginger Plan). So after tralling through hundreds of the little bastards i found this little gem (well its "gem" is yet to be determined), a nice and simple blog post detailing how some one made a base ginger beer that can be tweaked and changed as you see fit.

Home Brew Ginger Beer

Here is a shorter version of it, mixed in with what i did:

Ingredients:

• 240g Grated Fresh Ginger.
• 5 Lemons.
• 1 Kg Of Sugar. 500g Raw, 500g Brown, 1 Giant Table Spoon Of Golden Syrup.
• 20 L Of Water.

Method:

1. Fill a large pot about 3/4 full with water and set to boil.
2. Once boiling add the 1Kg of sugar (this is the 0 min mark).
3. After 10 min of boiling add 160g of fresh grated Ginger.
4. After 20 min add the juice of 3 lemons.
5. After 35 mins add 1/4 tea spoon of cayenne pepper, 1 tea spoon of nutmeg and cinnamon.
6. After 45 mins add last of the Ginger and the juice and zest of 2 Lemons.
7. After 55 mins take the mixture off the boil, add the juice of 1 Lemon and let cool.
8. Add the mixture to the fermentation tank and top up to 20L with water .
9. Prepare the yeast by desolving 1 teaspoon of sugar in 1/2 a cut of warm water, add the yeast to the top and leave for 15 mins.
10. Leave some where warm (about 20 Deg C) for aprox 6 days.
11. When bottling add a carbonation drop and some grated ginger.

Boiling Up The Wort

Yummy Water From Speights 

Yeasty Yeasty

Dunedin Cooling Method