"Ginger Bug" for Ginger Beer
When dealing with fermentation, there are so many different foods and drinks you can make, explore, and/or customize. As a foodie, almost all of them are exciting/enticing to me. I am especially fond of things that are flavor bombs and ginger is definitely on that list. Ginger beer, either non-alcoholic or alcoholic (depending on how much sugar you use and how long you allow it to ferment) is something I enjoy. Well, in theory at least. I have never had ginger beer that was naturally alcoholic. I have had ginger beer as part of a Moscow mule, for sure; mules are high on my list of drinky-drinks I likey-like.
i looked at a lot of different recipes for ginger beer. Like, a lot. Recipes ranging from actual malted beverages with grain, hops and ale yeast (beer with ginger flavor), ginger meads made with sparkling wine yeast, an 18th century recipe made with molasses and turbinado sugar, and traditional ginger beers made with a "ginger bug." A ginger bug is a yeast starter that is comprised of only sugar, water, and chopped ginger; no yeast is added, instead wild yeast is allowed to take hold and create your ginger bug. The difficulty for me is I want a ginger beer that isn't too high in alcohol content, isn't too dry (good-bye, champagne yeast/mead version), and is both sweetened AND carbonated, but doesn't use non-fermentable sweetners (good-bye malted ginger beer). I would like an average beer-range ABV but with the other items on my wish list, I might not get it. Wild yeast tends to tolerate a much lower ABV than store-bought yeasts, which have been developed to create higher ABV beverages. In the long run, I may settle for a lower ABV ginger beer that I enjoy vs a higher ABV ginger beer that is just okay.
But in the meantime, I decided to first make a non-alcoholic ginger beer to begin with and later down the line, I'll circle back and make an alcoholic version. What this means is foregoing any storebought yeast and using the wild yeast collected in a ginger bug for my ginger beer. I decided to use this recipe for several reasons, first it is the most straight-forward, second all the solids are filtered out pretty early on so it's going to be less messy, and third, it's something I can do in a day and have ginger beer just a few days later. The only fermentation that occurs in this recipe is bottle conditioning which will give us carbonation, but not any appreciable alcohol. Still, I think it will be very flavorful. Both my wife and I love ginger beer, so I'm ready to get a batch going so we can enjoy it.
In the future, I can get this recipe going, put it in primary fermentation and let it sit for a few weeks. Maybe add some yeast nutrient at the beginning to give that wild yeast plenty of food to work with. After a couple weeks, check the specific gravity and wait until it's stable for a few days, then calculate how much sugar for volume to carbonate and bottle as I would any other beer, and a few weeks later (hopefully) have alcoholic ginger beer. Even later down the line, I do think I'd like to make that "real" beer (malted beverage with grain, ale yeast & hops) that has heavy ginger flavoring.
But for today, I got started on my non-alcoholic ginger beer. Or more realistically, I got started on my ginger bug. I bought about 3 lbs of ginger. I really like ginger and I intend to use a lot more than this recipe calls for. Worst-case scenario, it's too gingery and can be mixed with Sprite to tone it down. I'm not too worried about that, though; I'm not sure "too gingery" is really in my vocabulary. I also plan to double the recipe just in general and make a 2-gallon batch of ginger beer. I was at a bar the other day and asked the bartender about some empties; he overheard me talking about making mead and brought me 8 beautiful clear wine bottles with swing-tops. That's where this ginger beer will be going. But I digress.
I went to the Asian grocery store and got some beautiful ginger. This 3 lbs was about $5, much cheaper at the Asian grocery than the regular grocery. It's $4.99 a pound at Fry's grocery. No joke.
I pureed the ginger (peel and all) in the food processor.
All my large mason jars are otherwise occupied, so to double the recipe I used 2 separate mason jars. This is 2 tsp diced ginger and 2 tsp sugar in each 16 oz mason jar.
Each jar gets 1 cup of lukewarm water. It probably didn't have to be warm but I am hoping that will help the yeast kick-off faster.
The last step is covering the jars with a breatheable top and leaving them alone for a few days. I thought of different ways to do this but in the end I put both jars inside a mesh bag and closed it. I'll be honest, it's kinda ghetto-looking, but it should work well. I'm referring to this as my "ginger pillow" because I'm ridiculous.
Now, like everything else you can create with this hobby, we allow the "5th ingredient" - time - to do its thing. In 2-3 days I will hopefully have a foamy "ginger bug" I can use to make ginger beer. I'll post the rest of the process once it's complete!