Ginger Ale!

Over the last few weeks me and my good wife, Steph, have been enjoying fresh, ice cold, tangy ginger ale and I am now going to share how easy and quick it is to make.

First off a list of ingredients. This is for making a 2 litre batch but can be scaled up or down if you want, the most important thing is to use plastic bottles to make your ale, I'll explain why later.

An empty 2 litre PLASTIC pop bottle
1 Lemon
Approx 1 inch of ginger (more if you like it strong)
2 Cups of sugar (or 400g)
1 Packet of bread yeast

If you are making bigger batches it's easy, just use 1 cup of sugar per litre, or 200 grams if you don't have cup measures. If only increasing to 3 or 4 litres then I don't think you need any more yeast but you will need to use more ginger and lemon. That is why I zest my lemon as well as juicing it as I use 3 litre bottles but you can still zest it if only doing 2 litres, if you are making 4 litres then I would use 2 lemons. This is a good recipe but once made do feel free to experiment and alter the quantities to suit you, I like to add a lot more ginger to make it really strong, just be careful when opening and ALWAYS USE PLASTIC BOTTLES!

...and that's it. Now to the method, which again is really simple!

1. The first thing to do is wash out an empty 2 litre plastic pop bottle . Once that has been cleaned and thoroughly rinsed out you can put all your dry ingredients in, which are the sugar and the yeast; if you have funnel this is easier.  
2. Grate the ginger into a measuring jug or bowl using the finest grater that you have, I don't think it makes too much difference if you just have the regular large grater used for cheese! I used the grater to also grate some zest from the lemon in as well but this is optional. If you have lots of ginger stuck to the grater then you can rinse it gently under the tap collecting the liquid that runs off in your jug or bowl.
3. Juice the lemon and add the juice (but no seeds!) to the bowl of grated ginger, this should now be a gingery lemony slurry! This is now added to the pop bottle. Again a funnel comes in handy but if you have used a lot of ginger it tends to clog up the funnel so a skewer or something similar is useful for helping it through!
4. Top up the bottle with cold water leaving about 2-3 inch at the top. Put the lid on securely and shake vigorously until all the sugar has dissolved. 
5. Leave the bottle in a warm place for 24-48 hours. Depending on how warm it is will affect this time. What is happening at this stage is the yeast is starting to convert the sugars to alcohol with the by product being carbon dioxide, or CO2. With there being no where for the CO2 to go it is absorbed back into the liquid causing it to be fizzy when opened! 
6. After 24 hours check the bottle by squeezing it, if it is really tight and you can hardly press the plastic in then it is ready for the fridge, if not leave it another day and it should be ready. This is why we use plastic bottles, if glass bottles where used there would be a risk of shattering if the pressure gets too high. With plastic it will stretch a bit and if it does over pressurise then it is no where near as dangerous!!!!!!!!!!!
7. Leave it in the fridge for up to 24 hours to make sure it is really cold. While it is in the fridge the fermentation will slow down but not totally stop. When it has been in the fridge long enough to make it cold it is ready to serve. Be very careful opening it and if possible open it outside or over the sink as it can be very lively! I found out the hard way with a batch that was a little over lively; It's lid flew off when I had loosened it slightly and then a second later the bottle erupted like a bottle of champagne! Don't be put off by this though, just be warned! 
8. To serve you can pour it straight from the bottle but I prefer to pour it through a tea strainer as this collects all the grated ginger. For a extra special treat fill a glass with ice, a shot (or 2) or rum, squeeze half a lime in and top up with fresh ginger ale, delicious! 

Before showing a few photos of the process I will add a little note on the alcohol content of this brew. Although There will be alcohol in there due the fermentation of sugar with yeast it will be of very low levels, probably less than 1%, though I would guess even lower. I haven't tested it but due to the short length of time it is left to ferment then there is not enough time for it to get too alcoholic. If in any doubt at all by all means either test it or enjoy on non driving days!

A nobbly chunk of ginger!

A zested lemon!

Juicing the lemon

Lemon juice

A cup of sugar

Pouring the sugar in

Yeast

The recipe says 1 packet of bakers yeast but as I had a tin of it I just used a cap full and it worked fine

Rinsing the juice from the grater

A nice out of focus shot of the lemon and ginger slurry going in

"We have a blockage, bring me a skewer!"

After 2 days the pressure test, this is me pressing hard but getting nowhere!

Poured through a tea strainer or sieve

All them bits from such a small glass of ginger ale!

Mmmmmmm, bubbly!

Racking

Due to recent death of my mother this is my first post in a couple of weeks so my blog has fallen behind a little. She was an exceptional mother and grandmother who always encouraged me to do the things I'm passionate about so would have wanted me to carry on with my blog. I have several things I would like to post about and the first is the racking of my mead and wine.

I had several days at racking as I have a lot of mead on the go at the moment. The 30 litre batch that I started at the beginning of the year was split into 4 demijohns a few months ago so that took a couple of days to rack. This batch is just a straight mead with no other flavourings apart from 1 of the demijohns which I added extra honey to sweeten. Though I didn't have a hydrometer to begin with I have since roughly worked out the starting gravity or S.G. to be 1.060 and the current gravity is 0.97 which would give a ABV OF 12%. This batch is also clearing nicely and will be bottled next month and then set aside to age, hopefully this will make it taste nicer!

The dandelion wine, which is in a 3 litre pop bottle, was also racked and that has a nicer smell than it had before! The colour is still similar to red wine, due to the red grape juice added, but it appears a little clearer. No gravity readings have been taken at any point on this wine so will be a wild card when it is drunk.

The lemon and ginger mead I started in March was the next. This had a S.G. of 1.090 and is now about 15-16% ABV. I did mention in a earlier post that I would bottle this at 12% but as it's already gone over I will now leave for it to run it's course. I didn't taste this while racking so am unaware if it's got a nice taste yet but in time will find out.

Finally I bottled my second batch of JAO mead. This followed the same recipe as the first batch I did but am unsure what it tastes like yet as I haven't tried it yet. I didn't write a post about this when it was started and  haven't recorded the gravity at any point so again I am unable to tell how strong it is. Oh well, that just adds an extra layer of fun when drinking it!

The dandelion wine.

Racking from the earthenware "johns"

MEAD!!!!!!

Ginger and Lemon Mead

I have started another batch of mead. This one is very experimental and again I haven't followed a strict recipe. This mead (as it contains honey, lemon and ginger) will be called medicinal mead!


To start this one off I copied instructions I had found for making a yeast starter. This involved putting a teaspoon of wine yeast in a jam jar with a couple of teaspoons of ginger and a couple of teaspoons of sugar. I then gave this a good shake and then added the juice of a whole lemon. The next thing to do was to put a piece of kitchen towel over the top to stop dust getting in. Within half an hour it was fizzing quite happily.

The next day I added another couple of teaspoons of grated ginger and the same amount of sugar. By this point it was fizzing like a freshly opened can of ginger beer and smelling like one as well!! I left the jam jar for about 12 hours then made the mead. To start I boiled a large pan of water and left it to cool; this is done to get rid of the chlorine in the water. I then weighed out 1.5kg of honey. This was easier said than done as all my honey has now solidified and I did bend a spoon or 2, I eventually went for the wooden spoon option. The honey was then dissolved in about 2 litres of the pre boiled water which was still warm so dissolved fairly easily. This honey water was then put in to a 1 gallon demijohn. The juice of 2 lemons and the rind from 1 was added into the demijohn along with a handful of sultanas and about a tablespoon of grated ginger (I didn't measure this and just added to taste). The last thing to go in was the contents of the jam jar. When all the ingredients were in I put further water in the demijohn to make it up to 4.5 litres.

Using my newly bought hydrometer I then took a gravity reading that was 1.080; this is known as the specific gravity or SG. When the mead has fully fermented I will take a further reading and then be able to work out roughly how much alcohol is in the brew by using a formula. The formula is quite complicated so I will be using an online calculator. About half an hour after adding all the ingredients and looking on the Internet at different SG levels I decided my level wasn't quite high enough so I added sugar to make my SG level 1.090. After I applied an airlock I checked back on it after about half an hour and found it to already be bubbling away very happily, almost worryingly fast!

I will now leave this in a warm place for a few months and then rack it and take another gravity measurement. If the alcohol level is 12% or above I will probably bottle it then.

This picture was taken a day after everything was put in the demijohn and you can see a layer of foam forming at the top as it is fermenting so rapidly. The bottle that is partly in the shot, to the right of the main bottle, is my first mead which is still not quite ready.


I would also like to add a note thanking my proof reader and editor, Steph, for the work she does correcting my grammar before I publish new posts. She has started writing her own blog about chickens, I think you should follow this link and have a read!