Ginger beer!
Ginger beer is delicious, and presumably a million times better for you than whatever junk you buy from the supermarket (although it’s by no means a health drink). I have a plant that I started last Sunday, I will bottle it this Sunday, and will have ginger beer for Christmas day. Here’s the trick;
- In a jar, put a cup of lukewarm water, one teaspoon of dried yeast, two teaspoons of sugar and a teaspoon of powdered ginger
- Each day up to a week, add another two teaspoons of sugar and another teaspoon of ginger
- A week after you started, dissolve 750g of sugar and a teaspoon of cream of tartar into a litre and a half of hot water. When it’s cooled, add this sugar solution, the juice of two lemons and strain the plant into six litres of cold water.
- Bottle into 1.25L plastic softdrink bottles up to the point where they begin to taper at the top. Before you tightly put the lid on each one, squeeze them so the solution comes up 1cm from the top. This creates a bit of a vacuum and as the solution brews and creates carbon dioxide, decreases the chance the bottle will crack and spill
- They’ll take a week to brew. Occasionally squeeze the bottles, if they are rock hard, very carefully loosen the lid to allow some gas to escape then tighten again
Bonus points: 1tsp chilli powder on day one will give the finished product a bit of a bite to it
