Ginger beer Recipe from a Jamaican cookbook

I have discovered ginger beer in Oz. Not sure why I never tried it earlier. Maybe usually it is too cold to have cold drinks …. Not that it stopped me have other soft drinks. I have more or less stopped drinking coke (a can once in 6 months) as it is full of sugar and I do not need that! I have some fruit juices but again not often as I prefer drinking water. I used to read about ginger beer being drunk on nice warm days in Enid Blyton books. But for some unknown reasons I never looked for or had it while was living in UK.

Here I found the Bundaberg ginger beer……… chilled is very refreshing on a nice hot afternoon. There are also concentrates which can also be had but it was not the same as the Bundaberg brand. Since I loved it so much I wanted to see if I could make any at home. I looked at many recipes but tried the one I found in a Jamaican cook book.

Ingredients

A quarter cup of freshly grated ginger (55 gms)

Litre of water

Three quarter cup of sugar (165- 175 gms)

Juice of one lime or less if you wish

A half teaspoon of dry yeast

Preparation

Mix all in a jug and cover with a cloth or use a partially open lid to allow air to reach the mixture. Keep for 24 hours and then strain the ginger beer. Put in the fridge to chill.

Well the ginger beer certainly turned out good and strong. I still felt that the sugar content seems a lot. When drinking you can dilute it with some water – to taste as sometimes it can be strong. The first time I thought why remove the ginger.. let it be and chill it but drain just as you are serving. It is surprising how much gas does remain in the drink even though there was no pressure build up as the jug is open. Next time I made a couple of litres and then added some water to dilute it a little to my taste and I think eventually the drink was just over 2 and half litres. It stayed for a couple of weeks in the fridge and so was good to make 2 litres.

There are other recipes for homemade ginger beer where honey is substituted for sugar or cream of tartar used instead of yeast and ginger powder instead of fresh grated ginger. They seem to take a week or so to make and it’s actually a concentrate which will have to be diluted. One of these I might try a different recipe and see how it differs. If it’s any good I will put up the recipe.