Ginger or Lemon Beer alcoholic or not

ClissAT

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Well I have finally finished my original plant!

I got into the jar with a wooden spoon & pressed the ginger, releasing a heap more flavour.
After adding more sugar & a little water, I left it out of the fridge to begin working & ended up with several bottles of very nice drink.

That Ginger Ale recipe I noted earlier in this thread turned out to be far too sweet.
I couldn't drink it in the end unless well watered down. So with my own plant finally working, I made an excellent punch with a little ginger ale, some plant juice, some coconut juice & topped up with ice & mint.
Very nice on the hot days we had all through December.

The ginger pulp didn't go to waste either. I put some into bread, some into chocolate recipes & biscuits, some into stir fry & the last bit went somewhere else which I can't remember now but all got eaten one way or another.

4 days ago I started a new plant. I'm just grating 2tbsp ginger to add each day along with equal sugar & water. It is working nicely already. With the weather quite nice right now, the house is that little bit cooler so no need to fridge the plant.
 

Melanie

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as long as you
Actually you are quite right there Andrew.
However I don't have the right sort of bottles to contain that excellent natural carbonation.
I will buy some eventually but for now I have to do it the fake way in combo gass and yeast.
Also I'm reluctant to leave it on the bench too many days in these temps before chilling due to the risk of making methanol or ethanol rather than alcohol.
Or simply blowing up, for that matter!
I'll have to put the plant and the tea in the fridge tomorrow as temps are supposed to be up 4-5c higher than today and I won't be here to rescue it. Even now the inside temp is still 27c at 10:30pm.

I made an iced drink tonight (1/4cup plant juice in tumbler of rain water with ice) and it had a definite bite so alcohol is forming in the plant (bug) for sure. It is also very strongly flavoured even when diluted that much!

I haven't tasted the tea yet other than to make a small drink with the tiny bit of leftover tea this morning. But it had a good strong flavour.
sterilize and make sure they are clean normal fizzy drink plastic bottles are ok if you want to try carbonation naturally because they are made to withstand a good amount of pressure build up. I use the coles fizzy drink plastic bottles for my ginger beer normally they are fine. I was going have finished ginger beer today but we had 40 plus heat last weekend and i think that killed the remainding yeast needed for a secondary ferment in the bottle to carbonate. it cleared nicely and and there is a slight fizz when opened but it's normally very carbonated. I chilled it and it is amazing just not fizzy . so don't let the heat worry you too much . you could try just one bottle to start . good luck
 

ClissAT

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Good to know Melanie, thanks.
I haven't made anymore since that one mentioned above due to being in hospital for a few months earlier last year.
Once home I couldn't use my arms very much so all that finicky stuff has gone by the wayside.
I left my ginger to grow on in its container and it's doing fine so there's plenty of fresh ginger if I need it.
 
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