Ginger Beer
Serves 12 Time Prep: 20 minutes Ferment: 1–2 days Difficulty 2/5 Ingredients 5 Steps 7
Ginger beer is a traditional fermented drink that can be made as either a soft drink or an alcoholic drink. Make it in a carboy with more sugar or malt extract and with longer fermentation time to get alcoholic ginger beer.
Ingredients
- 100–300 grams fresh ginger root, peeled and grated
- 1 whole lemon, zested and juiced OR 2 tsp cream of tartar mixed with lemon extract or zest to make a lemon juice substitute.
- 500 grams sugar
- Water
- Fermentation starter (see note)
Steps
- Simmer ginger, lemon zest, and sugar in about 1.5 L water, about 10 minutes.
- If using yeast starter, rehydrate in glass of warm water 5 minutes.
- Add lemon juice and enough water to reach 10 L in fermenter.
- Ferment until bubbling well: 8–12 hours with yeast, longer with kefir grains.
- Bottle into PET or other food-safe bottles.
- When bottles are hard (not just firm) from carbonation, refrigerate.
- Serve cold.
Notes from the original
- For the fermentation starter, you can use kefir grains or tibicos, ginger beer plant, ginger bug, ale yeast, or bread yeast.
- Lemon juice is to provide acidity as well as flavor.
- For a fermenter, you can use anything from an old PET water bottle to a food-grade bucket or a large stainless-steel pot; don't use copper or aluminium.
- The water used should be free of chlorine if possible (e.g. boiled and cooled, or filtered, or bottled spring water). This is because chlorine (or chloramine) will inhibit the fermentation a little. Use what you've got, but best results will be obtained without the chlorine.
- Once the ginger beer is fermenting, as evidenced by lots of tiny bubbles rising to the surface, it can be used as a leavening agent. Simply replace the water and yeast in a bread recipe with ginger beer, and leave to rise as normal.
- If left to ferment longer (about a week) a yeasty colony called a ginger beer plant will develop. Carbonation will also increase, greatly raising the chances for bottle (or other container) exploding; therefore, it is advisable to use a carboy or suitable container with an airlock.
Source. Adapted from “Cookbook:Ginger Beer” by Wikibooks contributors, revision of 2025-06-11, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Changes. Steps rewritten into short commands. Introduction shortened. Wiki formatting removed. This adapted recipe is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.