A few weeks ago, my Dad gifted me something wonderful.
A Ginger Beer Plant.
And while most people might not be so thrilled with a gungy jar of goodness-knows-what, that looks like it has been scooped up from a stormwater drain, I was delighted!
Because homemade Ginger Beer is delicious.
This recipe is adapted only slightly from The Country Women’s Association Cookbook and is for non-alcoholic* Ginger Beer.
BUT, despite consulting a few brewing experts, (including batch testing!) it was a reader, Michael, who alerted me recently (May 2020) to the fact that beer is most likely MORE alcoholic than I have otherwise been led to believe! Even better, he has done the science and the math…
This will almost definitely be alcoholic. The only way it won’t be is if it contains acetic acid bacteria in the yeast and bacteria colony. And if that is the case, it will taste lightly vinegar sour. That recipe means you’re bottling roughly 10-11 Plato sugar syrup. Sucrose is 100% fermentable so 10 Plato with 100% attenuation can create 5% ABV. Even if it is only 50% attenuated (the putting in fridge early as you mention), it will still be ~2.5% ABV. 10 Plato would produce roughly 4 volumes of CO2 if left to completely ferment out. 4 volumes CO2 is explosive carbonation, like you talk about. Again, even if you refrigerate when the bottles feel hard, bottles start to feel hard at around 2 volumes CO2. Which again will still leave 2.5% ABV.
So I must urge you, it appears it is most likely that an alcoholic beverage is produced when you follow these instructions. If you don’t want to ingest alcohol, avoid this recipe, and if you do go ahead, don’t give it to kids or people who are avoiding alcohol.
*****
I love this recipe because you don’t need any fancy brewing equipment, or yeast, it’s so easy. And while it may appear to have quite a bit of sugar, that sugar is food for the plant and is converted into carbonation.
Preparing your First Ginger Beer Plant.
You will need…
- 9 sultanas (preferably organic and preservative-free)
- Juice from 2 lemons
- 1 teaspoon of lemon pulp
- 2 teaspoons of ground ginger
- 4 teaspoons of raw sugar
- 2 cups of water (tap water left for a day to evaporate the chlorine off is best)
Preparation
Mix all ingredients into a large jar. Put on the lid on and give it all a good shake to incorporate everything.
Then, leave the jar undisturbed in a warmish, dark spot to ferment. (Around 25 degrees Celsius is ideal.)
Depending on the temperature, the start of fermentation can take from three days to a week.
ALWAYS leave the lid of your Ginger Beer Plant ajar, not closed tight! Cover it with a clean tea towel to keep bugs out, but still allow it to “breathe”.
Otherwise, it will explode, likely giving you a fright and surely making a sticky mess.
You know your Ginger Beer Plant is fermenting when a froth forms on the top of the liquid and you can see champagne sized bubbles rising from the sludge at the bottom of the jar.
Once this appears, you need to feed your plant two teaspoons of ground ginger and four teaspoons of raw sugar every day, for seven days in a row.
Miss a day and you risk the plant dying and having to start again from scratch.
My kids love to “feed” the plant, as when you add the sugar, the solution can fizz.
After a week, you are ready to bottle your first batch!
If you get no fizz and instead, find mould growing on your Plant or it smells foul, discard it and start again.
Preparing the Ginger Beer for Bottling.
You will need
- 4 cups of raw sugar
- 4 cups of boiling water
- 28 cups of water (again, tap water left for a day to evaporate the chlorine off is best)
- Juice from 4 medium lemons
- Contents of your Ginger Beer Plant
- Muslin cloth and a sieve
- A new 9-litre bucket or brewing bucket.
- Funnel
- Enough plastic bottles to bottle about 8 Litres of Ginger Beer
- Bottle washing/sterilizing solution (Found in either the brewing section or baby bottle section of the supermarket.)
Preparation
Firstly, Rinse your clean bottles and bucket with the sterilizing solution, following the instructions on the pack.
Add the sugar to the bucket, and stir in the boiling water with the sugar until it’s dissolved.
My “bucket” is a half-size brewers kit, with the handy tap at the bottom. I found them on Gumtree, $30 for two 28 litre buckets. They are perfect for Ginger Beer. Juggling a garden bucket and funnel to fill your bottles is much trickier. Allow for spillage!
Add the 28 cups of room temperature water and stir. Add the lemon juice.
Line a large sieve with a few layers of cheesecloth and strain the entire contents of your Ginger Beer Plant into the bucket. You can gather up the cloth to twist all the remaining “juice” from the Ginger Beer Plant.
Set aside the solid residue from the Plant, this will be used for your next batch of Ginger Beer.
Stir your finished Ginger Beer solution and bottle into plastic screw-top bottles, leaving a 3cm gap at the neck of the bottle.
I used plastic screw top, 740ml amber bottles from my local BigW, this recipe makes 14 bottles. Alternatively, find cheap litre bottles of mineral water at the supermarket, clean and sterilize once emptied of their original contents. Apparently, glass bottles are more likely to explode than plastic.
Screw the caps on tightly and store for 7-10 days in a cool, dark place. When the bottles are resistant to a squeeze, they are ready to be consumed. Store in the fridge.
Splitting your Ginger Beer Plant for the next batch.
Split the muddy-looking contents of the strained Ginger Beer Plant equally into two sterilized jars. Add two cups of water to each jar, and resume feeding your Ginger Beer Plants with two teaspoons of powdered ginger and four teaspoons of raw sugar each plant, every day for the next 7 days, until you are ready to bottle again!
Frankly, we don’t manage to consume 8 litres of ginger beer a week. I have split my plant a few times over, each time giving the “twin” away to a mate who is willing to give homemade Ginger Beer a go.
But if you don’t want to end up surrounded by multiple Ginger Beer Plants, just compost half the residue instead of starting a new Plant. That said, I’m going to give freezing a Plant a go.
As the Plant “matures” over the months, I think the flavour becomes more pronounced and more complex. The colour also appears to deepen.
Finally, a word of caution!
When opening your bottles, do so very carefully! If you open the Ginger Beer quickly, you’ll be enveloped in a mushroom cloud of fizz. I open mine over the kitchen sink, because no matter how cautious I am, I seem to get spills. A slight turn on the cap until you hear the air expelling is enough. If the Ginger Beer fizzes everywhere, quickly close the cap and try again when the bubbles have diminished. It might take a few minutes to detonate a bottle of Ginger Beer so it’s safe enough to pour into a glass!
The best thing about this ginger beer is that you can make it 100% organic!
Check out the A Farm of Your Home Subscriber Resource Library for our Ginger Beer Mocktail Recipe download!
Five delicious cocktail suggestions, including Manila Mule, Ginger and Grapefruit Glow and more to try with your delicious homemade Ginger Beer!
If you do not already have access, sign up today and receive your access password!
So I hope you give Ginger Beer Plant a try! Do let me know how you get on, won’t you?
* UPDATE: Please see my caution above. While I previously stated that “some minute amounts of alcohol is produced in this process, and from what I have gathered from this recipe and extensive research, it is less than 0.5% which is about the same as what you would find in a ripe piece of fruit. The legal level allowable in a soft drink for it to be labelled as a non-alcoholic beverage is 0.5%.” It would appear now that this brew is indeed likely alcoholic and should be treated as an alcoholic beverage
Did you ever successfully ‘suspend’ a plant by freezing?
Yes! Both myself and my parents have managed to do so. I acually froze mine in a jar, and feed as usual. You could also freeze the plant in a zip lock bag. It works well, especially as you end up with lots of surplus plants.
i got the recipe from aussie brewers site i found out i can not drink alcohol and was given this as a non alcoholic ginger beer.i getting the equipment 30/9/16 might let you know how i went. or i can send the link of non alcoholic site forum i posted it all to.
I’m just starting up my plant for Xmas consumption of Ginger Beer. The only organic sultanas I could find nearby were the Woolworths Macro Organic. Will these work?
Sorry for my tardy reply James! I’m sure you have since discovered that those sultanas worked a treat!
I can’t see the grains in your GBP, is it possible that you have a ‘wild’ style yeast that you’re making your GB with as opposed to: “DSMZ Strain 2472” which is a symbiotic pairing of an heirloom yeast and bacteria? I sourced mine carefully and I have translucent grains; apparently the bacteria works to eat/metabolise/break down the majority of the alcohol that the yeast produces, thus keeping it down to ~ 0.5% ABV. IF, I’m right and you’re working with a wild yeast, then you could expect much greater alcohol content, perhaps 4%+ obviously depending on when you ‘cold crash’ it in the fridge. Either way, homemade fizzy ginger drinks are great!
Hi Peter,
No “grains” in this mix, it does use natural yeasts to ferment. Is the DSMZ Strain 2472 a kind of water kefir?
What Peter is referring to are the small clumps of yeast/bacteria that form in a real GPB. When rinsed they are translucent blobs, referred to as ‘grains’. Thy look kind of like cooked rice. I don’t think it is possible (or at least it’s EXTREMELY difficult) to grow your own GBP at home from scratch. You need to source the GBP from a reputable source.
The recipe in this article is just culturing the wild yeast that occurs naturally in the sultanas. All fruit harbour natural yeasts. The preservatives in dried fruits and fruit juices in there to kill the yeasts. It will definitely produce alcohol and it will be the reason for your gushing (over carbonated) bottles. You will be able to confirm the alcohol content by taking gravity readings of the ginger beer before bottling (original gravity OG) and before refrigerating (final gravity FG) using a hydrometer. You can use these readings to calculate the volume of alcohol.
If you left it in the bucket for a week or two it would reach around 3.6% (with 4 cups of sugar in 8L) but would be dry and not sweet. I would estimate your bottle fermentation reaching up to 1%, maybe more, so if that’s a concern to you, measure it to be sure. You would need to sacrifice a bottle to measure but you would only need to do it for one batch if you handled every batch in the same way.
Also, the recipe doesn’t seem to have much ginger in it? The small amount from your version of GBP wouldn’t make for a very spicy beverage, would it? From what I can tell, you und up with 14 teaspoons of ground ginger in 8L of liquid. From the alcoholic ginger ales I have made, around 1.5KG fresh ginger per 20L is a good amount for a nice ginger zing. I guess it up to personal preference, though.
Cheers!
Wow, thank you Nick! So much info in one comment. The ginger beer flavour is indeed a bit weak. I prefer my water kefir “ginger beer” made with a big dose of fresh, zingy ginger. But the plant does seem to improve its flavour with age and repeated use.
My next brewing adventure is an elderflower champagne using just the flowers, white wine vinegar, sugar and water. No added yeast. I’m starting with the easiest recipe I could find! Do you have an Elderflower champagne recipe you could direct me to Nick?
Thanks again, I appreciate you taking the time to share your expertise!
Best regards
Melissa
Thanks Melissa! I think the number of things you are doing in a smallish space is fantastic. I also used this recipe for ginger beer, which I found on a Burke’s Backyard page, and it turned out really well. It’s simply incredible to see what the yeast can do with a little sugar and ginger (and time).
The CWA recipe I used says ‘after 7 days your plant is ready for bottling’, which is great, but I wonder whether the plant REQUIRES bottling after 7 days. Can you just keep feeding it in the same way, if you don’t need more ginger beer, and if so, for how long? Indefinitely? Perhaps dividing it every so often?
Thank you 🙂
(I also liked the quotation which says something like: start where you are, use what you have, do what you can… So true – whatever the project, it’ll never happen if you wait for perfect conditions.
So excited,
Followed all the directions
and just bottle my first batch of this ginger beer.
I used fresh ginger.
So now to wait 7 to 10 days to taste test. . .
The whole thing was so much fun. . .
I followed your instructions to the letter. Tasted good, but was dead flat. What did i do wrong?
Ooooh, sorry to hear that Joe! I would speculate that your sultanas did not kick off the fermentation process with the natural yeasts. Perhaps your climate was too cold to activate and sustain fermentation? I would start all over again with a *pinch* of ordinary freeze-dried yeast and see if that gets things rolling, or move your kit to a warmer spot?
Let me know how you go?
Cheers
Melissa
I have made several Ginger Beer Plants using water, ginger, lemon, sugar and yeast but it doesn’t smell like ginger beer, it smells organic. Am I doing this correctly?
Hi Peter, I’m not quite sure what you mean by smelling “organic” but a ginger beer plant will be bubbling each time you add the sugar, unmistakeably fermenting and almost overpoweringly smelling of ginger beer! I would check the quality of your powdered ginger, I have found expired ginger powder on the supermarket shelf before!
If your plant is not fermenting, I would find a warmer spot for it too.
Good luck!
Melissa
50 years ago I used to brew my own ginger beer and it was great. I stopped when one of the glass bottles blew up in my little sisters face. Leaving a scar visible today on her forehead just above her eye. I think as I enjoy the commercial product that I will start up a new plant. But using plastic bottles. I enjoyed reading your post thanks.
Oh goodness! Glad to hear she was not permanently injured! I think every home brewer has a similar story, perhaps not so dramatic as yours Selwyn! I remember when I was a kid, one of my mum’s homemade tomato sauce bottles exploded in the kitchen, it looked like a crime scene!
Good luck with your ginger beer plant, and yes, plastic bottles are the best!
This is NOT a ginger beer plant.. this is a ginger bug. they are completely different things. I wish people would use them correctly as most people never see a real ginger beer plant. This is a ginger bug. NOT BEER PLANT
Thank you for sharing your expertise Jason! I had never heard of it called a “bug” before! As I mentioned in the post this recipe is adapted from a Country Women’s Association cookbook where it is also called a “plant”. A quick Google search for both ginger beer “bugs” and “plants” indeed produced thousands of similar results for pretty gosh-darn good homemade ginger beer and frankly, that’s the point. Cheers! Melissa
Hey there,
When ‘feeding’ the plant, do we stir or mix in the ginger and sugar?
Thabks
Hi Erin, sure, you can stir or mix it in if you like. I never really bothered and it worked!
Cheers
Melissa
I tried to reply to Nick’s comment above, not sure if you can pass it on? I wanted to ask him, if I leave it in the bucket/fermenter to ferment for a week or two, until the gravity stabilises, should I still add carbonation drop or similar to the bottles when bottling?
Hi Ella! Sure, Nick can weigh in on your question, but my answer as it relates to this ginger beer recipe is no, you certainly don’t need to add a carbon drop or similar at bottling stage. This recipe is explosively carbonated as is! That said, why not set up an experiment, where you have a control batch for half, then try what you suggest with the other half of the batch? Let me know how you go?
Cheers
Melissa
Hi Melissa,
This will almost definitely be alcoholic. The only way it won’t be is if it contains acetic acid bacteria in the yeast and bacteria colony. And if that is the case, it will taste lightly vinegar sour. That recipe means you’re bottling roughly 10-11 Plato sugar syrup. Sucrose is 100% fermentable so 10 Plato with 100% attenuation can create 5% ABV. Even if it is only 50% attenuated (the putting in fridge early as you mention), it will still be ~2.5% ABV. 10 Plato would produce roughly 4 volumes of CO2 if left to completely ferment out. 4 volumes CO2 is explosive carbonation, like you talk about. Again, even if you refrigerate when the bottles feel hard, bottles start to feel hard at around 2 volumes CO2. Which again will still leave 2.5% ABV. Since people here are commenting that they don’t want to drink alcohol, and this will probably be given to children, please stop saying that it is non alcoholic.
Thank you Michael, for bringing this to my attention. I have made the changes to the post above!
Cheers Melissa
I have followed your recipe twice over now without success. I’m have difficulty with the fermentation process, I have been using commercial sultanas and they just appear to float and not activate after 6 days in and average temperature of about 23 c .to 25 c, I’ve heard the commercial sultanas are treated with vegetable oil to keep them from sticking together, would that interfere with fermentation do you think
I’m sorry to hear that Barry, and yes, perhaps your sultanas are at fault. I would scout for organic sultanas, free from oil or sulphites. It sounds like your temperature would be right enough to encourage natural fermentation. I would try once more with a pinch of brewers yeast added to the mix and see if that spurs fermentation.
Let me know how you go?
Cheers
Melissa
Thank you, the brew smell good and has a film of lemon pulp etc on top but no bubbles after 7 days so I decided to feed it and see what happens before doing as you suggest. Thanks for your help do you think I’m waiting time
If the yeast doesn’t kick off fermentation within a few days, I would start again fresh. If the film is just lemon pulp, and not mould, it should be fine!
Let me know how you go!