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This instructable features making ginger beer from a real GBP plant, not yeast which has been in existance for probably centuries. If you've drunk commercial ginger beer it's nothing like this, it has a much smoother, tangy, fuller flavour than the sharp crisp versions made with just yeast.
Oh how so many people have been fooled into making authentic, real ginger
beer!
Tsk tsk!
Traditional ginger beer was made using a ginger beer plant. This is NOT
something that you can easily make yourself - it must be possible to make
it yourself because someone hundreds of years ago by chance seems to have
created it. If a recipe calls for yeast it is not REAL ginger beer!
I have heard dark rumours that you can make one by blanching ginger and
leaving it with wild yeasts to ferment (just like a sourdough starter).
Why is this do you say? It's because a real ginger beer plant is a
symbotic relationship between yeast and bacteria creating a unique flavour
you cannot achieve with just brewers or baking yeast.
It is only in recent generations (read: 1887) that a gentleman called
Harry Marshall Ward looked into the sybiotic relationship and had he have
known it was going to pretty much consume the rest of his life, he'd
probably not have bothered. He named the process 'symbotic fermentation'.
I call it good beer!
It is however extremely difficult to get ginger beer plant as its use has
almost entirely died out. I assume from some of my research that it is
due to the WW2 where rationing made it almost impossible to maintain the
plant. Some did survive however as there are small countries that still
brew it traditionally and small internet shoppes which if you're looking
for it will sell it to you - but be warned, there are those who are
cashing in on your ignorance who sell you '100 generations old ginger beer
yeast' which is for all intensive purposes, just yeast. Just old yeast...
When a plant has made a batch, traditionally you could split it and give
it to friends, family or strange people on the internet.
So the first thing you need to do is go forth, find a supplier. There are
a few links on Wikipedia (thanks to a bit of fervent editing I updated the page anonymously a few days ago). Go forth, make purchases or put begging comments
in the bottom of this instructable and when I've got enough, I'll do my
best to send some out.
FYI unfortunately I've been terrible getting samples out to people (mine just isn't growing at present). Instead I'm going to post links to people who are producing good samples commercially rather than promising any out- T
Oh how so many people have been fooled into making authentic, real ginger
beer!
Tsk tsk!
Traditional ginger beer was made using a ginger beer plant. This is NOT
something that you can easily make yourself - it must be possible to make
it yourself because someone hundreds of years ago by chance seems to have
created it. If a recipe calls for yeast it is not REAL ginger beer!
I have heard dark rumours that you can make one by blanching ginger and
leaving it with wild yeasts to ferment (just like a sourdough starter).
Why is this do you say? It's because a real ginger beer plant is a
symbotic relationship between yeast and bacteria creating a unique flavour
you cannot achieve with just brewers or baking yeast.
It is only in recent generations (read: 1887) that a gentleman called
Harry Marshall Ward looked into the sybiotic relationship and had he have
known it was going to pretty much consume the rest of his life, he'd
probably not have bothered. He named the process 'symbotic fermentation'.
I call it good beer!
It is however extremely difficult to get ginger beer plant as its use has
almost entirely died out. I assume from some of my research that it is
due to the WW2 where rationing made it almost impossible to maintain the
plant. Some did survive however as there are small countries that still
brew it traditionally and small internet shoppes which if you're looking
for it will sell it to you - but be warned, there are those who are
cashing in on your ignorance who sell you '100 generations old ginger beer
yeast' which is for all intensive purposes, just yeast. Just old yeast...
When a plant has made a batch, traditionally you could split it and give
it to friends, family or strange people on the internet.
So the first thing you need to do is go forth, find a supplier. There are
a few links on Wikipedia (thanks to a bit of fervent editing I updated the page anonymously a few days ago). Go forth, make purchases or put begging comments
in the bottom of this instructable and when I've got enough, I'll do my
best to send some out.
FYI unfortunately I've been terrible getting samples out to people (mine just isn't growing at present). Instead I'm going to post links to people who are producing good samples commercially rather than promising any out- T
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Signing UpStep 1Equipment List
Right starting at the top!
Ingredients
2ltr of water chlorine free water (I used bottled which isn't environmentally friendly but because I just don't drink soft drinks anymore I needed the bottles! Also I didn't have time to make chlorinated water, see the process below)
400g of sugar
lemon juice (so having a lemon is a good idea)
Either a dessertspoon of ginger powder or two inches of fresh ginger
Ginger Beer Plant
Equipment
Fermentation vessel capable of handling more than 2ltr of water (could be bowl)
muslin cloth, elastic band
2l plastic bottle or several flip top beer bottles
general kitchen equipment like a tea spoon, scales, fine grater etc
Saucepan if using fresh ginger
Optional:
Sterilising powder
Petroleum Jelly
Bung and airlock
Hydrometer
Sample measure
How to dechlorinate water
Dechlorinating water - dead simple, put in bowl, leave overnight for chlorine to evaporate. This is better for pet fish and often tastes nicer. It also won't kill your delicate ginger beer plant.
Ingredients
2ltr of water chlorine free water (I used bottled which isn't environmentally friendly but because I just don't drink soft drinks anymore I needed the bottles! Also I didn't have time to make chlorinated water, see the process below)
400g of sugar
lemon juice (so having a lemon is a good idea)
Either a dessertspoon of ginger powder or two inches of fresh ginger
Ginger Beer Plant
Equipment
Fermentation vessel capable of handling more than 2ltr of water (could be bowl)
muslin cloth, elastic band
2l plastic bottle or several flip top beer bottles
general kitchen equipment like a tea spoon, scales, fine grater etc
Saucepan if using fresh ginger
Optional:
Sterilising powder
Petroleum Jelly
Bung and airlock
Hydrometer
Sample measure
How to dechlorinate water
Dechlorinating water - dead simple, put in bowl, leave overnight for chlorine to evaporate. This is better for pet fish and often tastes nicer. It also won't kill your delicate ginger beer plant.
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I had to remove some agapanthys, I knew there was a ginger plant as well.
Look what I found.
Thanks!
bluebell.wood@yahoo.co.uk
Thanks!
Being downunder I got things upside down folks.
Temperature above should be 25 degrees CELSIUS, around 75 F is OK.
Double the sugar weight to make a really good alcoholic gb - use 8 kg in 20 litres.
If you want a slight rum edge to the gb, just use raw sugar in place of white.
To make the starter is simple:
Bring a half pint or half litre of good tapwater to the boil and pour into a clean glass jar, about 2/3ds filling it. The jar should be sterilised with a little of the boiling water first.
Cover the jar with clean muslin.
When cool, add:
about a dessertsponful of sultanas or raisins
about a teasponful of sugar
about a teaspoonful of dry ginger
These 'abouts' are OK as quantities aren't critical.
Keep jar in a warm place around 25 degrees F until fermentation starts in a few days. If you carefully lift the muslin you'll see groups of bubbles on the surface.
Add each day:
a teaspoon of sugar
a teaspoon of ginger
Do this for about four days, when there should be full fermentation. Stop the additions.
When fermentation begins to slow down the mother is established and ready to use. It's the symbiote of yeast from the raisins and bacteria from the ginger.
Strain through the muslin and you have your mother.
Things that can go wrong:
Don't lift the muslin too often or stray bacteria or fungi may drift in - once a day is plenty, and anyway the growing activity can be observed through the glass.
Good luck!
Email: jasonmshell@yahoo.com
Thanks.
My brew has come out at only 1.5%. I can't seem to increase this like you have, so must be doing something wrong.
unfortunately for me my house was broken into and trashed. needless to say all my ginger beer plant was destroyed.
at present i am not able to afford to order more from the uk so i am hoping somebody here would be kind enough to send me some.
thanks.
my email is pi@operamail.com
I live in Ft Lauderdale, Fl. and could arrange a fed ex shipping for it.
Email is TRTmedic@gmail.com
Thank You,
Matt Wells
I just had hand surgery so I can't go too far.
thanks
sparkie
I would be interested in trying your ginger beer plant if you would like to share the "precious" mother with me. I could schedule a pick up with Fedex so you would only have to put the container in a box.
My email is gregblanc@me.com.
I'm in Southern California.
Would you be willing to share some of your plant with me? I live in the US and will pay for postage, etc. Please contact me with the particulars if you can share some of your plant. Thanks in advance!
chronomniscient [at] hotmail.com
Look forward t hearing from hopefully.
Cheers
Graham
I have been making my own ginger/ lemon kombucha for quite a while by brewing lemon ginger tea and later adding ginger and lemon juice inside the bottles when it was time to bottle the brew. Allowing the capped bottles to ferment for a couple days at room temperature gave a great carbonation. It has a nice crisp taste but it's missing the spices that you find in commercially made ginger beer.
I would be interested in trying with the ginger beer plant if someone would like to share the "precious" mother with me. I could schedule a pick up with Fedex so you would only have to put the container in a box.
My email is gregblanc@me.com.
Ginger beer plant (GBP) is not what is usually considered a plant, but a composite organism consisting of a fungus, the yeast Saccharomyces florentinus (formerly Saccharomyces pyriformis) and the bacterium Lactobacillus hilgardii (formerly Brevibacterium vermiforme),[5][6] which form a symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast (SCOBY). It forms a gelatinous substance that allows it to be easily transferred from one fermenting substrate to the next, much like kefir grains, kombucha, and tibicos.[7]
The GBP was first described by Harry Marshall Ward in 1892, from samples he received in 1887.[6][8][9][10] Original ginger beer is made by leaving water, sugar, ginger, and GBP to ferment. GBP may be obtained from several commercial sources or from yeast banks.[11] Much of the "ginger beer plant" obtainable from commercial sources is not the true GBP as described here, but instead is yeast alone. This is not legally false advertising because there is no regulation defining GBP.
not really a ginger expert and am keen to try this out, so i hope what im asking makes sense :P
just read some posts below, IF i need a specific breed, any idea where i should start looking? (im down under btw, so UK/USA stuff may not be all that helpful, plus i have no idea what customs will do to it before i brew with it)
thinking the ginger flavors it and the sultanas provide a natural yeast, like when you ferment wine. haven't worked out what the lemon is for, im thinking its to stop nasty things growing.
then cheesecloth the solution into more water and sugar, bottle straight away (with care of potential pressures) of ferment for a while first.
No, probably not.
Please before making comments of this nature do some research, mine took months of reading papers and tracing old prewar newspaper reports. I have been brewing for close to 10 years now and am well aware of the differences between bakers yeast, wine yeast and GBP.
Yes you can make Ginger beer with any old yeast - you could potentially just leave a brew with no yeast in at all and allow natural yeasts to populate it. If you're lucky you may end up with a good iambic brew similar to those made by belgum monks which will have similar properties, but it still won't be the same. It's like real ale vs fosters, same in principle but different ways to brew and slightly different methods producing a different end product.
FSM FTW.
Have either (or both) of you tried brewing a batches simultaneously and then tasting them side-by-side to see which is better? That seems like the real test to me, newspaper articles and degrees notwithstanding.
Whoever does this first wins in my book. Which doesn't really mean anything. But maybe you'll get a patch!
in reply, yes I have (though I don't deserve a patch for that). Originally before I started doing AG brewing, I tried different yeast cultures to change the flavours of ginger beer - I read a lot of resources that said you could split "the plant" in two and give some to your friends - but I thought "why would you split yeast, you can pick it up anywhere". One day I sat down and did some research and found that there was two entirely seperate ways of brewing - traditionally using a ginger beer plant which you could only get from someone else because it wasn't generally commercially available and the other way was with generally available yeast (even wild yeasts from the ginger itself).
The difference was that the prevelant way of making good ginger beer was to use a ginger beer plant. I contacted some of my elderly relatives and they remembered that several households used to have them before the war and remembered it as a strange transparent thing at the bottom of a jar.
I did more research looking up old newspaper articles circa 1800's-1900s and found that it was produced mainly by chemists and sold in stoneware bottles but due to the rise of more popular american drinks such as coca cola and the two world wars and rationing that the ginger beer plant had virtually become extinct.
Several enthusiasts had managed to track down some preserved in a german seed bank and had ressurected the strains used and were spreading its use.
I would appreciate it if you just left Tea-Clipper alone as I get the feeling he's just trolling for comments from me.
I received some GBP from a couple of kind instructables users and have been trying to make this newer, fancier ginger beer, but have run into a problem. After a couple of days, the fluid that my colony is in turns to gel! I tried to ignore this and bottle it anyway, but then it just continues thickening until I can barely get it out of the bottle. Did my fluid get contaminated?
PM me!