Adventures with Ginger

"Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and caldron bubble. ~ "Macbeth," IV: 1

I like ginger ale a lot, but I like ginger beer better, I love the intense aroma and deep spicy flavor, however, I can't always find it, and so the other day, when I had to settle for a ginger ale when I really wanted a ginger beer, I decided to try and make a batch of my own. so exciting!

It turns out, making ginger beer isn't really that difficult, just a matter of being patient because there's a lot of waiting involved. A quick search on the internet turned up many recipes for homemade ginger beer, all of them varying so very slightly that all I had to do was pick a version and hope that the results would be favorable. I did see some recipes that were more involved; they used fresh grated gingerroot and cream of tartar, but I decided that this being my first time, I'd pick an easy recipe and see if this turns out to be something I might like to keep up with, if it is, then I'll start experimenting with other versions.

Pictured above, bubbling and gurgling contentedly is "the starter." This is comprised of one tablespoon yeast, two teaspoons sugar and 3/4 pint of warm water. mix, mix, stir, stir Cover and set aside in a warm place for 24 hours. At the end of the 24 hour period I'll then begin "feeding" the starter for a period of 7 days with one teaspoon ground ginger and one teaspoon sugar. Rather than just go ahead and tell you what happens at the end of the seven day period, I'm going to log it here as it needs to happen, so stay tuned mes amis.

hee, this is so much fun!

Written by Deb on June 26, 2004 06:20 PM