It’s a bottle of ginger beer that I hope will taste nice enough to fill the gap between now and when the current batch of cider is ready.
It’s early days yet but that should become Ginger beer in about a week.
I’m using a 4.5L Demi-John from Amazon to ferment in, filled it about 3/4 the way with warm water (not hot) and then added half a kilo of brewing sugar. The other half will go to flavoring the finished product. Then I added a packet of yeast that came with my cider making kit since I still had one packet of cider yeast from last year.
In a small saucepan I heated up a cup of water then I used a veggie peeler to peel off the skin and upper layer of a ginger root about 4 inches long. A good portion of it is left so that gets wrapped up for the Mrs. to use in her cooking. Then I squeezed in the juice of 1 large orange and added a few tablespoons of sugar. I’m not trying to make a syrup here but I could have just by adding more sugar at this point.
I let that simmer on low till it smelled really nice then strained it into a measuring cup and added some warm water till it was about the same temp as the water in the Demijohn. You don’t want it too hot or it will kill the yeast. Now the orange/ginger broth you’ve made goes into the bottle and you add enough water to bring the level up to where you see it in the photo. Top with an airlock and sit back for about a week. I should mention you can use lemons if you want but as I said, this is for the Mrs.
It started bubbling away thru the airlock very quickly so I think the yeast (that’s the yellow bits you can see floating in the bottle) is happy in there. JUST in case I overdid the sugar and it might overflow thru the airlock I sat the whole thing in a rubber mixing bowl to make a moat which will catch anything that might dribble down the sides. I’ve never had one do that when making cider but doesn’t hurt to look like you’re thinking ahead, eh? 🙂
The Mrs. asked when we would know it’s ready? I am planning on using the same rule of thumb I use for cider. When the frequency of the bubbles escaping from the airlock slow way down, it’s time to have a taste.
Remember at this point you still have a bunch of sugar to add so it may be quite sharp on the tongue but if the balance of ginger and orange is acceptable add a teaspoon of sugar to each bottle (or to taste, I don’t like mine overly sweet) and then set it aside somewhere cool. There may be some additional fermentation at this point so be sure to store it someplace cool. I would wait at least a day for the yeast to settle back to the bottom of the bottle before drinking.
AS usual, I forgot to measure the SP before fermentation but I will try hard to remember when I’m done. I don’t want it to be too strong alcohol wise, nor too flat to make any fizz. I am shooting for around 4% but if it has a gentle fizz, less is fine by me.
Cross your fingers, I’ll update this in a week or so to let you know how it went!