Ginger Beer Plant

[dpearce4]

Does anyone on here have a ginger beer plant I could have some of please.

I would like to make some at school with the pupils.

Im happy to pay postage.

cheers

 

[VEG]

http://wholesomebee.co.uk/how-to-start-a-ginger-beer-plant/

 

[pargyle]

I would like to make some at school with the pupils.

It's just as easy to start it from scratch with bakers yeast:

Grow your Ginger Beer Plant with 2 oz Baker’s yeast (buy at a bakers). Put the yeast into a jar and add half a pint of water, two level teaspoons of sugar and two level teaspoons of ground ginger.

Feed it each day for the next seven to ten days. by adding one teaspoon of sugar and one teaspoon of ground ginger. The ‘plant’ will grow each day.

Strain the mixture through a piece of muslin or fine household sieve (keep the sediment), and add the juice of two lemons, 1 lb granulated sugar and 1 pint boiling water. Stir until the sugar is dissolved then make up to one gallon with cold water.

Bottle the ginger beer, filling the bottles to about 3 inches from the top, and leave for two hours, take care not to put them on a stone floor, unless standing on a piece of wood. After two hours cork lightly. Keep for seven to ten days before drinking.

And now you can start again. The sediment left when you strained the liquid is divided in half and put into separate jars. This is the ‘yeast’ starter and you can begin the recipe again, with “To your recipe add half a pint of cold water …..” Don’t forget to give a friend the other half of the ‘starter’, and a copy of the recipe!

 

[BeeJayBee]

It's just as easy to start it from scratch with bakers yeast:

But I've got one if you'd like it. Time taken for a package to arrive (can't drive to Post Office at the moment) would probably be long enough for you to set one up though. It only takes a few minutes to chuck some yeast, sugar and some ground ginger into a jar. It'll be bubbling the next day.

School? It's an alcoholic drink! Can make some kids seriously tiddly.

 

[pargyle]

School? It's an alcoholic drink! Can make some kids seriously tiddly.

Only a little bit ... we made grapefruit wine in our chemistry lessons at school - we were supposed to be going to distill some alcohol from it .... some wicked little beggars drunk it one lunchtime and substituted the contents with weak tea ... Hic ! Chemistry teacher sussed out what had happened and kept us all behind until we confessed - fortunately, the whole class confessed eventually ! Mark of admiration for the culprits !!

Great old chemistry teacher with a sense of humour let us off but got his own back later on when he had us making hyrogen sulphide in test tubes ! Those were the days before H & S was invented ....

 

[BeeJayBee]

Only a little bit ...

Not the way I make it!

 

[Queens59]

Mum used to make this and it exploded regularly - could her stone shelf have been to blame? But why is stone so dangerous??

 

[pargyle]

Mum used to make this and it exploded regularly - could her stone shelf have been to blame? But why is stone so dangerous??

No ... just the opposite - stone floors were cold and would stop the secondary fermentation which gives the bottle the fizz ... the exploding bottle is because there was too much secondary fermentation - either bottled too early before all the sugar had fermented or when she bottled it she gave the bottles more than the traditional teaspoon of sugar to give it the fizz ...

 

[pargyle]

Not the way I make it!

Ahhhh... that will be more like ginger wine then ! Delicious ...

 

[denise washington]

hi dpearce this is the same recipe i allways used
Grow your Ginger Beer Plant with 2 oz Baker’s yeast (buy at a bakers). Put the yeast into a jar and add half a pint of water, two level teaspoons of sugar and two level teaspoons of ground ginger.

Feed it each day for the next seven to ten days. by adding one teaspoon of sugar and one teaspoon of ground ginger. The ‘plant’ will grow each day.

Strain the mixture through a piece of muslin or fine household sieve (keep the sediment), and add the juice of two lemons, 1 lb granulated sugar and 1 pint boiling water. Stir until the sugar is dissolved then make up to one gallon with cold water.

Bottle the ginger beer, filling the bottles to about 3 inches from the top, and leave for two hours, take care not to put them on a stone floor, unless standing on a piece of wood. After two hours cork lightly. Keep for seven to ten days before drinking.

 

[dpearce4]

Don't these recipes make alcoholic ginger beer though? would be worried as im giving it to pupils.

 

[barratt_sab]

I think that in a traditional ginger beer plant the liquor in the plant is alcoholic, but then you dilute it dramatically before bottling.

You can also make quick "fridge" ginger beer in plastic bottles. In this case you only let it ferment for about 12-24 hours (so little time for alcohol production) and then refrigerate it to stall fermentation.

I always used to make it with a plant, but last year I tried quick fridge ginger beer and it was really pretty good, and much quicker and easier.

I cannot find the quick ginger beer recipe at the moment, but if you search for "fridge ginger beer" several recipes appear.

I started making it when I was about 10 and haven't managed to get drunk on it yet...

 

[BeeJayBee]

Don't these recipes make alcoholic ginger beer though? would be worried as im giving it to pupils.

Any recipe with yeast will make alcohol. You could overheat it to kill the yeast, but you'd lose the bubbles.

Try this Sainbury's one, it uses honey for sweetness and soda for the fizz

http://www.sainsburys-live-well-for-less.co.uk/recipes-inspiration/recipes/ginger-beer/

 

[pargyle]

Don't these recipes make alcoholic ginger beer though? would be worried as im giving it to pupils.

It is alcoholic but the level of alcohol is governed by how much sugar there is to start with and how far you allow it to ferment. The most it will achieve on the recipe I gave you is about 7% but you can stop the fermentation at an earlier stage and keep it down to about 3 or 4%. The accurate way is to measure the specific gravity of the original mixture and then dilute it with more water or add less sugar to give you an original SG of about 1.09 and finish it at about 1.01 then you will have an alcohol content of about 10.5%. You really want it below about 4% to be classed as 'low alcohol content' so you either finish it at about 1.05 which will give you a sweeter ginger beer or start with an original specific gravity of about 1.05 and finish it at 1.01 when you will get a drier drink.

Obvviously, you need a winemaking hydrometer to be able to measure your SG.

If you want a bit of fizz in the bottle you need to leave a little fermentation to carry on after you have bottled it but not too much or your bottles willl burst. PET ones are safer than glass, leave an inch of airspace at the top of the bottle.

You can kill the fermentation with a camden tablet or just put it in the fridge
when there is a bit of a hiss when you release the screw top of the bottle a little. You can tell with a PET bottle when there's a fizz there as the plastic at the top of the bottle over the airspace won't push in as easily.

You may need to let it settle a bit in the bottle to clear and for the yeast to drop down to the bottom.