How to Make Ginger Beer or Ginger Ale at Home

Making your own ginger ale or ginger beer is easy and fun, and you'll have an almost never-ending supply. And because you've made it yourself, you'll know exactly what ingredients are in it, and you'll be able to vary the recipe to get just the right amount of ginger and sugar to suit you.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Jar with loose-fitting lid
• Yeast
• Sugar
• Ginger (ground or fresh)
• Water
• Lemons
• Bottles

1. 
    
   Dry yeast

   Mix 2 oz. of yeast with 2 level tablespoons of sugar. Stir.

2. 
    

   Add 2 tbsp. ground ginger, or 4 tbsp. fresh grated ginger, and 1 cup of water. Mix well.

3. 
    
   Fermentation lock

   Pour this into a loose-lidded jar, and cover. You can also use a piece of cheesecloth and a rubber band to cover the jar, or reuse a wine bottle and add a fermentation lock.

4. 
    

   Each day, feed this with 1 tsp. sugar and 1 tsp. ground ginger or 2 tsp. fresh grated ginger.

5. 
    

   After ten days, dissolve 2 cups of sugar into 3 cups of water. Bring to the boil, let cool slightly, and add the juice and peel of 2 lemons. Let cool.

6. Now strain the contents of the jar into the syrup, and add 6 cups of water. Mix well.

7. 
    
   Wire-top bottle

   Strain and pour into strong beer or cider bottles. Wire-top bottles are excellent; if you use corked bottles, tie the corks on with wire, or reuse a wire cage from a champagne cork.

8. Take the sediment from the jar, and use this to restart the process. As long as you keep feeding the jar daily, you will continue to make ginger beer or ginger ale. After the second or third bottling, you can divide this sediment among several jars to make more ginger beer or ginger ale.

9. 
    
   Wait three whole days--the hardest part!

   Wait three days. Your ginger ale or ginger beer is now ready to drink!

Tips & Warnings

• For different flavours, try adding pineapple instead of lemon.
• Try adding honey instead of sugar.
• Add bruised mint leaves, if desired. You can also try vanilla bean, thyme, cloves, or other herbs or spices to your taste.
• Although you can use regular bread yeast, to refine your ginger ale, try the selections from a wine yeast store.
• This does contain a tiny amount of alcohol. The longer it is left at the end-stage, the more alcoholic it will become.
• If you wait longer than three days, release the pressure from a wiretop bottle, or chill the bottles, or both. Otherwise the exploding bottle can be dangerous, and most certainly will make a huge mess.

Resources

• Fermentation lock at Amazon.com
• Wire Bail Bottles at Amazon.com

[flowersinmylife]

on 11/30/2009 Wow!!! I can't believe I found this recipe at last!!! I used to do this in England and no-one I asked here had ever heard of it!. Thankyou so much. 5* and a rec.

[classicalgeek]

on 11/30/2009 LOL! Teena is all too familiar with me and my huge messes in the kitchen!

[raindroptexas]

on 11/28/2009 Thanks- Love your straight forward language for instruction and warnings!