Incorporate probiotic bacterial into ginger-based beverages! Yum.
Some simple ingredients, a few items from around the kitchen and within 2-3 weeks you can have your own DIY probiotic ginger beer.
Some simple ingredients, a few items from around the kitchen and within 2-3 weeks you can have your own DIY probiotic ginger beer.
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Signing UpStep 1: Starting the Ginger Bug
Place 1 cup of filtered water in a pint jar
Add 2 teaspoons of freshly grated ginger root (skin and all)
Stir in 2 teaspoons of evaporated cane sugar, tighten lid and shake.
Cover* and Store in a warm place, add 2 teaspoons of cane sugar and ginger root each day. In 2-7 days, when it starts bubbling, it is active and ready for the next step.
Use right away for best results.
* I use a coffee filter and rubber-band to cover the pint jar.
Add 2 teaspoons of freshly grated ginger root (skin and all)
Stir in 2 teaspoons of evaporated cane sugar, tighten lid and shake.
Cover* and Store in a warm place, add 2 teaspoons of cane sugar and ginger root each day. In 2-7 days, when it starts bubbling, it is active and ready for the next step.
Use right away for best results.
* I use a coffee filter and rubber-band to cover the pint jar.
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#1 is making the bug, as described.
#2 is boiling the water-ginger mixture, adding the lemons, letting it cool and adding the bug, then letting it ferment in a vat of some sort for a week or two.
#3 is transferring the Ginger Beer into individual bottles and letting them sit another week or two to finish up fermentation.
It looks like this recipe combines the last two stages. I don't how it would affect the taste of the brew, but it seems like less work.
Also I used a glass gallon jug with a screw top lid. Will it help ferment?
If so, how long do you need to leave the bug in before straining it out?
Wouldn't the yeasty fermentation add to the yeastiness of the gut?
I'm not sure I understand.
Great 'ible, I look forward to trying this :)
Glass bottles are certainly more dangerous, but also more elegant and allow better flavor. Use heavy antique bottles ("refillables") and use a capper, because they will withstand tremendous pressure before exploding. Do not use twist-offs, jars, jugs, growlers, or anything other glass containers. They explode very easily.
I think you and I have had different experiences because you bottle beer while I do soda. Bottling soda is different in some important ways. Explosions are much more common as soda has much higher potential for carbonation after bottling because of its higher sugar content. Bottling beer in mason jars might work fine (I don't know; I have never done it) but bottling soda in them will cause explosions. For more explanation on this (and for more good soda information in general), I recommend Stephen Cresswell's "Homemade Root Beer, Soda, and Pop". In fact, check any published literature about soda brewing and they all contain warnings about both using thin glass and about too much headspace.
I won't argue the point that beverages taste better from glass than from plastic. They do to me, but if you have no preference, then go on doing what you're doing.
Finally, exploding bottles ARE dangerous. Maybe your explosions have not been violent, but some of mine have. I once wanted to bottle in a growler to save time and bottle caps, and the growler exploded while it was in the fridge when the door was opened. I had used the recommended amount of fermentation time, sugar and headspace. Fortunately nobody was hurt, but there were bits of glass in the next room. Flying glass is dangerous and can cause eye injuries. In fact, read the comment below this from Pattus, who had an exploding bottle of soda destroy a refrigerator. If it can do that, I'd call it dangerous.
Maybe you are a better brewer than I am and have had fewer explosions, but I certainly don't want to be responsible for anyone who reads these threads to be injured.