Alcoholic Ginger Beer

Heres an insight into my latest concoction, alcoholic ginger beer! I started it yesterday so should be ready for my Christmas "Whiskey Macs" or just lazing infront of the Chiristmas day showing of  Dr Who.
You can play with the spices and sugar levels to get your favourite flavours in there. Star anise and cardamom are good but i dint have any so have only used what was in the pantry.

Recipe

• 200g of root ginger
• 150g of treacle
• 1tsp of cinnamon
• 1tsp of dried ginger
• 6 cloves
• Juice and zest of 1 orange
• 1tsp of yeast nutrient (a tsp of tomato puree will surfice if you dont have any to hand)
• 1tps of yeast. (plain old bread yeast will do but ive used brewers yeast)
• 350g of dark muscavado sugar
• half a grated nutmeg
• 1tps vanilla extract

Method

1. Grate the ginger into a pan along with the lemon rind and juice with about 500-700ml of water. Just enough to cover the pulp and bring to the boil. Add the treacle and all the other ingredients except the yeast nutrients and yeast and continue to boil for about 10 minutes. This should be long enough to infuse the liquid.
2. Pour your stewed pulp into a sterilised fermenting bin ( a sanitised bucket will do or 5 litre water bottle) and make up the liquid to about 5 litres with cold water.  You may need to add some hot boiled water to make the temperature upto blood temperature.
3. When the liquid is at blood temperature (between 18 and 25 degree) add the yeast nutrient (or tommy puree) and then add the yeast and stir.
4. Cover your fermenting bin losely or your bucket with a teatowel, or your water bottle with some kitchen paper/cotton wool. This will prevent any airbourne beasties from entering the "must". It doesnt have to be too precise as your brew will only be standing for a few days.
5. Store your bin/bucket/bottle in a warm place for the yeast to start working. This could be as little as 20 mins or as long as a few hours. You'll know when you see your grated pulp starting to float on the surface.
6. Stir daily for about a week then strain off the upper liquid from the pulpy mess at the bottom of the bin/bucket/bottle. You can do this by syphoning it out or simply carefully pouring  the liquid out.
7. Bottle the brew into "STRONG EMPTY CARBONATED BOTTLES".
   Ill be using 1 Litre pop/soda water bottles as the pressure can get extremely high. Old beer bottles with the swing top are perfect.
8. Add 5grams of sugar to the bottles per litrel of brew for "priming". This is food for the yeast to produce extra CO2 to carbonate the drink.

Store for about a week then you're free to drink at will! You can tell when your brew is pressurised as your plastic bottles will be very tight and "ping" when tapped. You may need to release the gas slowly to stop your beer escaping.

N.B


The strength will depend on the sugar content but about 20g of sugar per litre will give 1% alcohol. So for a 5-6 percent ABV (Alcohol by Volume) you'll need about 120g of sugar per litre. so if you're making a gallon as I am youll need to multiply that weight by 4.5. (4.5litres make 1 gallon) which is about 550 grammes of sugar. If you have  a hydrometer you're looking for your brew to have a Starting Gravity (SG) of around 1040.
If you bottle the brew at about 1.000 it should taste just about sweet enough and not too dry.

Enjoy