# Ye Olde Fashioned Ginger Beer



## wildschwein (3/7/07)

This post is a copy and paste from a thread in another HB forum. Wanted to replicate it here for some more coverage.

I've been pondering writing a post on lacto-fermented soft drinks for quite a while, but I've been in beer mode and haven't done any homemade soft drinks for a year or so. However, the other day I was given a link in one of the forums to www.basicbrewing.com which is an American online HB site with lots of radio and video content. One of the 2006 archived radio programs had an interview with a guy called Raj Apte who has been messing around with an authenticate ginger beer plant he acquired from Germany. You can listen to this interview here Raj Apte interview. And there is some other stuff here PDF and here Fermented Treasures

After reading and hearing all this I was inspired to make another ginger beer plant, as I threw my other one out a while back and had forgotten about it. I just thought I'd use this post to share some of my experiences with home bred cultures and how I've used them to partly ferment and carbonate home brew soft drinks which are great if you have any citrus trees in your back yard. I've tried a couple of the commercial ginger beer home brew kits and was pretty unimpressed with the results as they taste like diet soft drinks, and I don't like fake sugar flavour. The following brews are not really geared towards large scale production, rather it's for small batches like 4-6L that are consumed within a week or two of bottling. Although you could do more if you want to feed a large crowd in the near future. The good things is that you can prepare it and have it ready faster the home brew beer.

To make a plant you need some type of unsprayed, uncleaned fresh or dried fruit. For the last plant I made I used 1/2 a handful of organic raisins placed in a clean jam jar covered them with cold water, left the lid slightly ajar and then left it near a sunny window (lactobacillus like light, yeast doesn't) for about five days. After this period I strained the water into another jar and added a teaspoon of dried ginger (you can use grated fresh ginger too) and 2 teaspoons of sugar. The sugar feeds the culture, which should be a mixture of lactobacillus and some wild yeasts which will largely be suppressed by the bacteria. In winter the plant needs to be fed 1/2 teaspoon of ginger and 1 teaspoon of sugar every 2-3 days in order to keep it lively. In summer it will need to be feed more often as it is more active in warmer weather. Malt extract will give the culture a more nutritional feed. The plant I made the other day was made by picking a mandarin from a tree in the back yard covering it with water and a dissolved teaspoon of malt extract and following the same procedure as above for the raisins. Any fresh untreated fruit will give you a similar result to using organic raisins. Treated fruits usually have been soaked in bleach solutions which will have killed off many of the wild yeasts and bacterias present on the skins.

So what do you do with the plant? Other than keeping it fed I use it to partly ferment home made soft drinks. For around 6L of ginger beer I usually juice and zest about 6 smallish lemons, or oranges (whatever is on the trees out the back), fresh grated ginger if I have some, and add quite a bit of sugar, a teaspoon of cream of tarter, some boiling water to dissolve the sugar and extract the citrus oils, plus whatever cold water is needed to make up to 6L. I usually do this mix by taste to get the sweetness I'm after. Obviously less sugar more citrus gives you a tarter result.

I then funnel the drink mix into PET bottles or clear plastic soft drink bottles which have been cleaned in very hot water. I would never use glass for this and ultra-careful sanatation is not that important because we're not dealing here with long storage times like we are with beer. The bottles are filled, leaving about 2 inches of head space. I then pour the liquid off the top of the ginger beer plant through a funnel to distribute it evenly amongst the bottles. The dried ginger sediment that is left behind in the jar is the plant. To keep it going for the next batch I add some more cold water (about 1/2-3/4 cup) to it plus a teaspoon or so of sugar and 1/2 teaspoon of dried ginger. All the bottles are then capped but only loosely. This is important, as they will explode if left for a while to carb up at room temperature. Leaving them loosely capped allows fermentation to take place and let the excess CO2 vent out. For a sweet soft drink 2-4 days fermentation in winter in a warmish, well lit place is more than enough. I seal the bottle lids tightly and allow them to carbonate fully for a about a day, but no longer. Checking the bottle for hardness is a good way to see if it's carbed up. Hard bottle = good carbonation. In summer all of this happens in less time. Then I refrigerate before serving. Cooling the ginger beer down is a very good idea before opening otherwise it can gush. Once refrigerated the lactobacillus becomes inactive, and the wild yeasts will often back off too and you can keep the drink in the fridge for about week. It's not advisable to leave it any longer though unless you let off some excess pressure by quickly undoing the lid to vent off the excess CO2. This is a good way to regulate the pressure in the bottles. But the contents should be cold or they will defintely gush. The bit of head space in the bottle gives me some time to quickly twist the cap back to the closed position if the brew tries to escape.

Although this all sounds very backyard and esoteric (i don't make regular beer like this) these ideas presented here actually do work well and the taste of the drink is far superior to commercial home brew ginger beer kits IMO. Sourdough breads are actually made with very similar cultures to this and in Europe there are certain bakeries which have been using the same strains for over 200 years. I have also made lemonades and orangeades from the same plant by using more citrus juice in the mix. After a certain amount of use and refeeding the plant's properties became more stable as one type of culture in the mix becomes dominant over the others. Exposure to sunlight will aid lactobacillus development and help to suppress any wild yeasts present in the blend.


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## Stuster (3/7/07)

That's excellent info, wildschwein. Thanks for sharing that with us. I'm very tempted to have a go at this now, after thinking I'd never do any ginger beer. This looks good though. I've been making some sourdough recently, which is a fairly similar process as you say. I've also got some Oztops lids which I haven't used for a couple of years so it might be time to bring them out of retirement and give this a go. Great.  :super:


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## Mr Bond (3/7/07)

*COOL *Post!

Clear and simple.


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## Weizguy (3/7/07)

Stuster said:


> That's excellent info, wildschwein. Thanks for sharing that with us. I'm very tempted to have a go at this now, after thinking I'd never do any ginger beer. This looks good though. I've been making some sourdough recently, which is a fairly similar process as you say. I've also got some Oztops lids which I haven't used for a couple of years so it might be time to bring them out of retirement and give this a go. Great.  :super:


Beware of aged Oztops. The rubber may be perished and glue itself to the top of your bottle. Had a few of these happen.

And, Bravo on this treatise. I have a recipe for a ginger beer plant, and it's remarkably similar. Last night, I went to sleep while listening to a beer podcast and woke up again as the guy was talking about that ginger beer plant from Germany. Would you see much value in purchasing one?

Seth


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## wildschwein (3/7/07)

Yeah I'm not sure. The guy in the radio interview describes his plant as being a jelly like blob which mine have never looked like. He also says that it's some lacto bacillus strain. I guess buying one would get you an authenticate strain but I'm not sure if the results would be overly different.


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## redhill (4/7/07)

Evening, 
Pardon the slight hijack. Those of you jungle-juicers who bake sour bread and are interested in these quickly-brewed lambics might like to consider kvass, another very old drink, everyday stuff in Russia. Mash rye flour (or rye bread if youve got no flour) and sour it with the same culture with which you leaven bread. Add honey, berries and aromatics if you like. Ferment it and drink it before it becomes so sour that you cant (a few days, YMMV). I have never primed and bottled the stuff, it is lively enough straight out of the fermenting vessel. 
Neither mash temps nor flour quantities are crucial, if you are really keen you can leave the mash out altogether, stir flour up with cold tap water into a dough, thin the dough out with more water until it reaches the consistency you want, and ferment. The old recipes are not precise, they merely say Leave the mash in the stove over night and dont advise pitching a starter into it, but I have found the results of such spontaneous ferments unstable at best and usually foul. If you pitch an active starter, the bug-balance is right from the start and the drink fortifies itself pretty quickly against nasties. I believe the mega swill kvass brewers adulterate the mash with malt, and ferment it with S. cerevisiae, but thats a bit contrary to the spirit of it. 
To get up a sourdough culture from scratch: mix 20g flour with 20g water and leave for a day in a container on the bench; next day, mix into yesterdays dough 40g flour and 40g water and leave it covered on the bench; day three, add to your mixture 120g flour and 120g water and leave it another 24hrs. Repeat in this way until the dough actively ferments. Might take you a week initially. If after a few days of stepping up, youve got too much starter on your hands, chuck two thirds of it and step up the reduced amount, but keep stepping it up until it gets really busy, say, doubles in 12 hrs. 
WRT culturing up wild yeasts from the skins of fruit and from the air, in this case, the yeast and lactobacilli already present in the flour are so numerous that, after so many refreshments, they become dominant at the expense of your original inoculant. If you do not refresh it, you generally retain some of the original cultures character at the cost of a sluggish ferment. 
Kvass is sour, hazy, spicy and thick with starch, but also just about boozeless, and as such, I have a love-hate relationship with it. Worth experimenting with though. 
Cheers


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## sjc (4/7/07)

Some like minded people to myself on this part of the forum!
I've been baking sour dough bread every week from the same starter for several years now. Chalk and cheese to bread made with commercial yeast. Also have made ginger beer in the past with a plant as described by wildschwein.
I like the sound of the kvass redhill and happen to have all the raw ingredients at home. Might have to get that going tonight.
Cheers
Stephen.


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## wildschwein (4/7/07)

Yeah sourdough bread is the goods. I had a rye culture that I kept alive for about year. And another time I made a whole wheat flour culture. They have quite different properties to regular commercial yeasts where nearly all of the rise takes place before you even put it in the oven. With sourdough leavened breads most of the rise happens once the loaf actually goes into a hot oven. And yes, the difference between the two in terms of flavour and quality is literally chalk and cheese, as sourdough is far superior in all respects although it does require a little more time and hands on involvement.


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## sjc (4/7/07)

Hi Wildschwein
I'll have to check out your blog. My sourdough starter is wholewheat flour and water. 

I think a lot of chemical changes happen to the flour in the bread dough during the very slow rising process - particularly hydrolysis of the starch. With the very fast acting commercial baker's yeast there is little or no time for such changes. I think this is what makes the finished bread so different.
Cheers
Stephen.


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## wildschwein (4/7/07)

I just put down a small batch today with my new plant cultivated from the wild stuff off a fresh-picked manadarin described above. I only made 3.75L just to test it out. 

Firstly, I zested and squeezed the juice from 6 very small sour marmalade oranges (these seem to be more sour than lemons), and threw it in all in a bucket with the squeezed out fruits too. To this I added 1.5L of boiling water, 500g of raw sugar, 2 teaspoons of ground mixed spice, 1 heaped tablespoon of golden syrup and 2 heaped tablespoons of dried dark malt extract (DME). I didn't have any fresh ginger or cream of tartar on hand today. I then dissolved everything really well, left it to steep for 5 minutes and topped up the bucket to the 3.5L mark with cold water. Next I strained the contents through a seive to get out all the zest and squeezed orange parts. I used my hands to squeeze all the additional liquid out of the orange flesh. I then checked for sweetness and it seemed like it was sweet enough, so I topped up again with cold water so I had a total of 3.6L of ginger beer 'wort.' Temperature was in the mid 30s: just right for lactobacillus. I then funneled the wort evenly amongst 3 clean 1.25L Pepsi bottles. The additional 100-125mls was made with the liquid off the top of the ginger beer plant which was also poured through the funnel evenly amongst the 3 bottles. The colour is a nice cloudy amber thanks to the DME and golden syrup.

I then loosely capped the bottles and left 'em on a sunny, warm, north facing window ledge inside. Topped up the plant with water and gave it a good dose of dried ginger powder, DME and some raw sugar too; to keep it going for a while. Bubbles started forming in the bottles almost instantly so fermentation is already underway. Hopefully, this plant will be good.


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## wildschwein (15/7/07)

First batch went well though I found the plant to be a bit lazy so I added a small amount of ale yeast to it just speed things a long a little. Put on a second batch and did a really authentic tasting GB in just 2 and half days.

I made another 3.75L batch. Firstly, I zested and squeezed the juice from 4 medium lemons into a big mixing bowl and also added 400g of raw sugar, 2 tablespoons of golden syrup, 2 heaped teaspoons of dried dark malt extract, 3/4 teapoon of cream of tartar, 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of ciric acid, 2 teaspoons of dried ginger, 1 teaspoon of mixed spice. I then covered all this with 1.5L of boiling water and left it to steep for 30 minutes. Then I strained all this through a sieve into a bucket and topped up to the 3.6L mark with cold water. Pitched my yeast boosted plant ( about 150mls worth) into the luke warm mix and bottles into 3 x 1.25L soft drink bottles. I left the lids loose for about a day and then on the second day tightened 'em up before I went to bed. When I woke up the bottle was quite hard so I let off the pressure and retightened 'em and then waited another several hours before they were hard again. Put 'em in the fridge and served it up. Best GB I have ever had. Excellent carb level and nice golden colour, and delightful spicy flavour. Tasted a lot like a specialty organic brand I have had before. At last GB Holy Grail.....

Here's a pic of the first batch


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## wambesi (3/8/07)

Hi I read through but might have missed it, does making it this method have much alcohol content?
Just wondering if I my kids may be able to have some and friends that don't drink alcohol?

Just started a plant tonight based on this thread, have done two before using other similar methods.

Cheers


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## wildschwein (4/8/07)

Hey Wambesi. Yeah you can feed it to your kids. Obviously if you leave it to ferment out of the fridge for too long the alc content will increase and it will become drier in taste. For a regular brew though the alc would be way, way less than 1%, so it's safe for kids. Non-alcohol drinking friends shouldn't have a problem either. Generally, you only ferment long enough to gas up the bottle and then that's it. 

Hope your plant turns out too. If you find it to be too slow fermenting when you get to using it, try adding a little brewer's yeast to the main plant just to fortify it for a while until it becomes more active. You can pour a little yeast sediment into it from the bottom of a home brew beer.


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## wambesi (25/8/07)

Hey wildschwein, tasted my first batch of GB made along the lines of your post above, bloody nice drop, the best I have yet made.
The plant was done exactly how you said except I switched between dry ground and fresh grated ginger, also 1 tsp of raw and 1 tsp of LDME.

Anyway the rest of it was 2 large oranges 1 "normal" size lemon, and 900g of ginger all juiced with a juicer and 1 kg dex made to 6L then the plant strained in. Probably will add another litre of water next time as it seems a little thicker than stuff I normally drink.

Mates next door think it was great (they are my test subjects with most of my HB) as do I. The plant started and is continuing along great even with the coldish weather, and the bottles took 3 days to harden up.

Kept the plant going and will be bottling another batch shortly.
Cheers for the original post, finally got a real good homemade ginger beer to keep playing with, improve and the kids will grow up with. :beer:


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## wildschwein (25/8/07)

wambesi said:


> Hey wildschwein, tasted my first batch of GB made along the lines of your post above, bloody nice drop, the best I have yet made.
> The plant was done exactly how you said except I switched between dry ground and fresh grated ginger, also 1 tsp of raw and 1 tsp of LDME.
> 
> Anyway the rest of it was 2 large oranges 1 "normal" size lemon, and 900g of ginger all juiced with a juicer and 1 kg dex made to 6L then the plant strained in. Probably will add another litre of water next time as it seems a little thicker than stuff I normally drink.
> ...



That's great wambesi; I'm glad it's all worked out for you and you and your "test subjects" enjoy the finished product. Having a ginger beer plant is kinda like having a loyal pet - all those bugs inside it work magic. Fresh ginger is, of course, better than dried. I use dry because it's generally cheaper, and it does have a certain depth of flavour and hottness to it. You've also became an heir to some valuable knowledge that is largely forgotten in this age of commercially manufactured, preservative packed, dead soft drinks. At some time in the 1920s-1950s most people in the Western world gave up fermenting their own products at home, like sour doughs, soft drinks and saurkraut etc and turned to dead products. So, I guess you now know what people have been missing out on.

Once again, glad you made good use of the info and I hope you and your family and friends continue to enjoy the world of healthy, living soft drinks. You're not limited to ginger beer either; you can also make lemonades, creaming soda (by incorporating vanilla essence in your wort) and root beers (lots of cinnamon and treacle/molasses goes well in this) too with plant, although they will always have a slight ginger flavour if you are feeding your plant with a ginger sugar diet.


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## new2brew (25/8/07)

Must be the time of year for it, but my wife and I made a batch of Ginger Beer today. Easy recipe that if we can make it anyone can.

600g or raw ginger root
17 cups of cane sugar
4 lemons, squeezed and chopped
3/4 teaspoon of Cream of Tartar
1 pack of wine yeast
20L of water

Boil all the ingredients in a pot with 5L of water for 20-30 minutes
Strain, and pour the Ginger Beer wort into your fermenter with 15L of cold water
Cool down to 24c, then pitch yeast
ferment for 7 days and them bottle into plastic bottles to enable depressurising if needed.

Easy to make and tastes great too. Made it last year and had to make it again for those warm summer nights on the deck with music. :chug: 

Bricey!


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## wambesi (25/8/07)

wildschwein said:


> although they will always have a slight ginger flavour if you are feeding your plant with a ginger sugar diet.



So can you just not use ginger for the plant or use something else? Not that I would mind either way a slight ginger taste.
But it is crazy that so much is lost these days in doing things yourself, I enjoy something so much more if I spent the time on it etc.


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## MHB (25/8/07)

Great post to open a new topic, lots of good info and some top resources thanks wildschwein.

Now, on the bludge:-
Does anyone have a good "Ginger Beer Bug" they would be willing to share? 

I am looking for a traditional Jelly Blob as talked about in the links above.

I will be happy to cover any costs and a little extra; this topic has got me all fired to make a GB the old fashioned way. None of the kits on the market really do it for me, I just hate Cyclamates.

MHB


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## wildschwein (25/8/07)

wambesi said:


> So can you just not use ginger for the plant or use something else? Not that I would mind either way a slight ginger taste.
> But it is crazy that so much is lost these days in doing things yourself, I enjoy something so much more if I spent the time on it etc.



I don't think it's essential to feed the plant ginger. If you take some of the liquid offf the top of your plant, put it in a new container and just start feeding it sugar and the occasional bit of citrus juice you could probably eventually make a plant to do non-gb drinks. Don't know for sure but theoritically it should work okay.


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## Tony (25/8/07)

MMMMM just saw this.... very interested!

Will go insearch for fresh fruit tree next week.

I have been thinking of getting a traditional sour dough culture going but never been sure exactly how.?

Love the sound of this soft drink culture.

i recon my kids would love a fizzy orange juice cordial.

cheers.

Top post!


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## wildschwein (27/8/07)

Hey Tony - a sourdough culture is very easy to make. Here's how I do it. Get yourself some organic wholemeal or wholewheat flour (you can also use rye flour). Put about 3 tablespoons of flour in a jar or old plastic container. Add about 3/4 of a cup of cold water. Mix the flour and water well. Cover the container with some loosely fitted cling film and leave it hanging around on a kitchen bench. Everyday add another teaspoon or 2 of flour to the mix. In five days you'll start to get some bubbling and a slightly sour smell. (You can cheat by adding some commercial yeast to the plant if you like: sometimes I have added the sediment from a bottle of homebrew ale just to get things started). 

Pour off 1/2 of the mix and add about another 1/3 cup of water and another tablsepoon of flour. Keep feeding it with a teaspoon or 2 of flour for another few days. By this time it should be ready to use. Simply pour 1/2 of the mix into your bread recipe and top up the remaining 1/2 with a little water and some more flour: this is your culture now and everytime you need to use it you pour of half into your bread and keep and feed the other half. This is how some bakeries in Europe have been making bread for several hundred years with the same culture. Use half for the bread, keep and feed the remaining half. If you keep the culture in the fridge you don't need to feed it as often. But it will take a while wake up when you want to use it.

Just a few notes about it's properties when cooking. Generally, you are dealing with a mix of lactobacillus and some yeasts which are often wild. So your bread won't prove like it does with commercial yeasts (unless of course you threw some commercial yeast into the starter.) The bread doesn't puff up as much before you put it in the oven and proving times should be longer than with commercial yeast. Making your bread dough and leaving it to prove overnight is often worthwhile. With sourdough loaves most of the rise happens when you put it in a hot oven. Bakers call this "oven kick" as all the gases generated by the culture try to get out of the loaf but are trapped in the gluten structure. It's always a good idea to place some slits in the loaf before you cook when you're dealing with a lot of oven kick as this helps the loaf expand in the oven in a pleasing way. Good luck; this is what real bread tastes like.


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## Tony (27/8/07)

thanks mate

Will definatly be givving this a go

cheers


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## wambesi (27/8/07)

Once again wildschwein thank you very much, will be doing this very shortly as well. Was looking for a good starter.  
Now what else is there that you do yourself?!
I'm really enjoying getting into the "brew/make it yourself" now, a lot more satisfying.


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## Cletus Spuckeler (29/8/07)

Nice one Wildschwein and good blog (particularly re Peter Cundall). I used to have a ginger beer plant that I made with my Nan, definately need to get back into it (never tried it with oranges, looks excellent)


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## wildschwein (29/8/07)

Cheers Cletus; glad you like the blog - good luck with the new plant.


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## wildschwein (7/9/07)

I had some mandarins in the fruit bowl that needed to be used up, So, I juiced and used them in general accordance with my ginger beer recipe. The result is a a sweet and refreshing mandarin soda with a thick mouthfeel and a very cloudy orange appearance.

For a 3.75L batch, I juiced 16 large mandarins and poured the juice several times through a sieve to remove as much pulp as possible. The juice was then combined with 400g of raw sugar, 2 heaped tablespoons of golden syrup, 3 teaspoons of dried ginger powder, 1 teaspoon of mixed spice, 1/2 a teaspoon of citric acid, and a pinch of cream of tartar (all put in a big pot and heated to 80C until the sugar was dissolved). This was then topped up with cold water (to make up about 3.6L), decanted in to clean soft drink bottles, and then some ginger beer plant (about 100-150mls) was added.

The bottles were left with the caps loosened overnight, and then sealed the next day. Within less than 8 hours the bottles were hard and carbonation had obviously occurred. I then whacked 'em them in the fridge, to get them cool prior to serving to avoid gushing.


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## dan_pilbara (18/9/07)

I am struggling to get my ginger beer plant started can i use 5526 wyeast Brett. Lambicus to get a culture started? Can i split the pack and freeze it as described in other posts as for liquid yeast? Or would someone be able to send me a sample?


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## wambesi (18/9/07)

dan_pilbara said:


> I am struggling to get my ginger beer plant started can i use 5526 wyeast Brett. Lambicus to get a culture started? Can i split the pack and freeze it as described in other posts as for liquid yeast? Or would someone be able to send me a sample?



What did you use and how did you go around it?
I used homebrand sultanas to make mine and it went off real good.
Don't know about the liquid yeast but I'm sure wildschwein will reply soon with some advice about it though.


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## dan_pilbara (18/9/07)

Don't have access to much non store brought fruit so i tried a prune and got nothing but am trying some organic sultanas now so I'll see how they go


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## wildschwein (19/9/07)

dan_pilbara said:


> Don't have access to much non store brought fruit so i tried a prune and got nothing but am trying some organic sultanas now so I'll see how they go



It should work. Add some ale yeast (not lager yeast) to the plant if you're finding it's going too slowly. It's a good way to get things started. Eventually though the lactobacillus and other yeasts should take hold.


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## bottle top (23/9/07)

After spotting this thread I was inspired to have a go at authentic homemade GB.

I have made a plant that I have now fed a couple of times and it seems to have a small amount of bubbling action on its surface. But I was wondering, how long after creating the GB plant until it is viable? Am I ok to have a crack now or is there some other sign of activity I should be looking for?


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## skippy (23/9/07)

Excellent post their Wildschwein, 

have seen ginger beer made the way you explained and it tastes great.

Might do a batch when summer arrives!


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## wambesi (23/9/07)

bottle top said:


> After spotting this thread I was inspired to have a go at authentic homemade GB.
> 
> I have made a plant that I have now fed a couple of times and it seems to have a small amount of bubbling action on its surface. But I was wondering, how long after creating the GB plant until it is viable? Am I ok to have a crack now or is there some other sign of activity I should be looking for?



With my plant I followed wildschwein's original post, I had the sultanas (12) in the mixture for 4 days until they had fermented, then strained the liquid into another jar and then fed the plant each day for 11 days then made the beer.

It turned out really well, but I have some modifications for my next one which I just started yesterday (didn't keep the original plant going, but will be now as I found out I need a steady supply  )

How many days have you actually fed it for? You said a couple so I gather you mean just that? 2 or 3?
All the plants I have done previously (all different recipes) have said to feed it for about 7-10 days, and I havn't done it any less than that really.

I guess as long as you have some healthy action going on you should be right, but it will not have alot of "flavour" as you have not fed it for very long, but if you are going to add more ginger when making the beer then it may be ok.
Just remember to taste it while cooking it up before adding the plant to make sure it is what you want, I didn't before using this method and most of those bottled have found themselves down the sink...none of this batch though.


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## bottle top (23/9/07)

I did the same thing with the sultanas for 4 or 5 days, and poured the liquid off a couple of days ago. So yeah, I've fed it only twice.

I think I'll do as you suggest and give it at least a couple more feeds before proceeding...


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## domonsura (24/9/07)

I got a plant started with some organic raisins a couple of weeks ago, but I feel I must have done something wrong, as it was fine one day(murky, looking like something was happening), and then I woke the following morning and it had 5mm of fluffy white mold on the surface. Not knowing what it was and not wanting it around any of my brewing gear/area - I chucked it. 
Wildshwein, I don't suppose you (or someone else) could post a pic of a healthy happy plant so I know what I'm looking for?


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## wambesi (24/9/07)

Yeah that doesn't sound so good.
I wish I had taken photos of my last plant (and better yet kept it going).

After it has fermented and drained into a secondary jar and being fed, basically mine looks like trub type muck on the bottom of the jar with the liquid on top.
Depending on the make up of the ingredients it can be different colours, my last one was sort of a mix between an orange and light brown colour.

If someone doesn't beat me to it, I will post a photo of mine in a week or so once it has got back up and going.
Don't let it put you off though, get back into it. It is so satisfying having a plant based ginger beer totally done by yourself.
I actually grabbed a Bundy GB at work today with lunch and it just didn't compare to my last batch, pity there is none left!


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## wildschwein (24/9/07)

domonsura said:


> I got a plant started with some organic raisins a couple of weeks ago, but I feel I must have done something wrong, as it was fine one day(murky, looking like something was happening), and then I woke the following morning and it had 5mm of fluffy white mold on the surface. Not knowing what it was and not wanting it around any of my brewing gear/area - I chucked it.
> Wildshwein, I don't suppose you (or someone else) could post a pic of a healthy happy plant so I know what I'm looking for?



I don't have access to a pic at the moment. But mould on top isn't right. I assume this happened after you had drained the fluid from the raisins and that you had been feeding it sugar and powdered ginger for a while. If this is the case the plant should have a slightly orange coloured fluid with a brown ginger sediment on the bottom. You should also see the odd bubble coming up from the bottom. But there should be no mould or skin on it.

It's interesting, as I have made a few and have never grown mould on the top before. But this stuff is a bit hit and miss so it can happen. Like I said above, maybe you could start with an ale (not lager) yeast strain in water in a loosely covered clean jar and feed that every day with ginger and sugar. It should be usable within a couple of days. Use half for a GB brew and top up the remaining half with more water ginger and sugar. Eventually you should get some lactobacillus and wild yeasts growing in there too. The ale yeast will eventually die off but it will get you brewing quickly and hopefully not produce any spores. Don't be worried about cheating, I actually added a bit of yeast to my plant at the beginning and all is well.

Edit: I just noticed all the new posts on this. Dan_pilbra that liquid yeast would probably be ideal. Just add to the plant and keep feeding. Bottle top; I generally think that you would need to be feeding for at least 5-7 days before it's usable. The longer you go the better it should be in terms of viability.


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## dan_pilbara (3/10/07)

My ginger beer plant made from a handful of saltanas seems to be going strong. It is a light brown/ orange colour with sediment on the bottom of the jar, does anyone have the jelly looking substance as shown in the pdf? could you please post pictures.

Dan


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## dan_pilbara (5/2/09)

Hi All,
I have had a ginger beer plant going for some time now and got some good batches out of it. Lately the plant has been getting a jelly like substance at the very top between the air and liquid, it is quite firm, slightly brown and transparent and forms a disc at the top of the jar completely covering the surface. I have been throwing the jelly thing out and continuing to feed the plant.

Does anyone have any ideas as to what this is? Is it good or bad??

Dan


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## Tyred (5/2/09)

From what I've read in this thread the jelly blob may be good. I haven't read all the links on page 1 but there is apparently discussion about this (assuming that's what it is).


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## pdilley (1/3/09)

dan_pilbara said:


> Hi All,
> I have had a ginger beer plant going for some time now and got some good batches out of it. Lately the plant has been getting a jelly like substance at the very top between the air and liquid, it is quite firm, slightly brown and transparent and forms a disc at the top of the jar completely covering the surface. I have been throwing the jelly thing out and continuing to feed the plant.
> 
> Does anyone have any ideas as to what this is? Is it good or bad??



In short, yes it is good.

In long, Ginger beer plant (GBP) is a fungus (typically occurring in the presence of bacterial symbionts), which must contain the yeast Saccharomyces florentinus (formerly Saccharomyces pyriformis) and the bacterium Lactobacillus hilgardii (formerly Brevibacterium vermiforme). It forms a gelatinous substance that allows it to be easily transferred from one fermenting substrate to the next, much like kefir grains and tibicos.


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## notung (1/3/09)

Brewer Pete said:


> Ginger beer plant (GBP) is a fungus (typically occurring in the presence of bacterial symbionts), which must contain the yeast Saccharomyces florentinus (formerly Saccharomyces pyriformis) and the bacterium Lactobacillus hilgardii (formerly Brevibacterium vermiforme). It forms a gelatinous substance that allows it to be easily transferred from one fermenting substrate to the next, much like kefir grains and tibicos.



Brewer Pete, I am interested in different types of lactobacillus fermented drinks like kombucha. Unfortunately after moving house and stopping brewing kombucha it for some time, I no longer have a mother to go off. I have read somewhere about a traditional way of brewing ginger beer using water kefir grains. If you know where somebody might find more information about this, including an exact description of what kefir grains _are_, I'd love to do some reading!

If I were to follow Wildschwein's directions in maintaining a ginger beer plant, I'd be facing problems in my citrus supply. In a frost-prone part of Central Vic, I'm not sure whether to bother whacking in lemons/limes (although one of the native limes - Citrus glauca, I think - could prove a goer). So I wonder could a GBP culture be maintained without the citrus?

I am very glad that this thread was dredged up anyway, as I have been hatching plans to brew a ginger gruit ale. It will be an all grain ale flavoured with ginger, lemon balm, licorice, calamus, juniper and coriander. I will look up my plans in beersmith and post the recipe for feedback later today. The recipe calls for an ale yeast.


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## pdilley (3/3/09)

notung,

For all your kefir interests, check out this place:
http://users.sa.chariot.net.au/~dna/Makekefir.html

Basic Water Kefir Recipe: 

3 Tablespoons water kefir grains 
2 Tablespoons sugar 
1.5 Cups water 
lemon (if you can't find an organic lemon, then take the skin off first) 
A dried fig, or a tablespoon of sultanas or raisins

(Optional: add 2-4 teaspoons of fresh ginger root juice to make a refreshing ginger beer kefir. To make the ginger root 
juice, pound or chop finely about 60g fresh ginger root and blend it to a mash with half a cup of water. Strain through 
a cloth, squeezing out the juice. You can also use dried ginger powder. Boil 1-2 tablespoons of ginger powder with 1 
cup of water and then strain through a fine cloth. Cool this liquid before adding it to your brew.) 

I make this quantity of kefir (or a double batch if I have more grains) in a 1 quart (1 litre) glass preserving jar. 
Whatever jar you use, please make sure you leave an inch or so at the top to accommodate the carbon dioxide gas 
produced by the fermentation process and avoid explosions! As your kefir grains reproduce themselves, you will 
need to adjust the ratios of ingredients for a bigger batch, or make more batches. 

Method: 
*Strain and rinse the grains under clean running water. 
*Put them in the jar with the other ingredients, and stir until the sugar dissolves. 
*Close the jar with a good firm lid, and leave it at room temperature to ferment. Stir after 24 hours, and as often as 
you like. 
*Brew until the raisins float to the surface and the liquid is a bit fizzy. This might take about 48 hours, but might be a 
good deal faster when the weather is warm. 
*Scoop the lemons and raisins off the top of the liquid. 
*Now use a strainer to separate the water kefir grains from the liquid. Rinse the kefir grains thoroughly under cold 
water. 
*Squeeze the lemon into the liquid and put it into sealed bottles or jars. You can chill and drink the beverage now, if 
you wish. Or you can leave it to ferment (secondary fermentation) for another day or so at room temperature, before 
moving it to the fridge to chill for drinking. (Further fermentation will increase the alcohol content of the drink, 
depending on the amount of sugar in the liquid. In any case, water kefir drinks seem to be only very mildly alcoholic 
like home-made ginger beer.) 

Other Tips: 
*Once you have made your first batch of water kefir, you can rinse the grains and start the next batch immediately. 
*If you don't want to make another batch immediately, you can store the grains in the fridge in a sugar water solution 
(1Tablespoon of sugar to 1 Cup water) for up to 7 days. You can also freeze strained, rinsed water kefir grains in 
plastic ziploc bags for up to 2-3 months. 
*Sugar: Apparently the grains do best on less-refined, more mineral-rich sugars, though any kind of cane sugar will 
do (refined white sugar, golden sugar, muscovado, rapadura). 
*Water: The grains do best in hard, highly mineralised water. If you are using soft or distilled water, add teaspoon 
of baking soda per 6 cups of water to keep the grains healthy. 
*Fermentation time: One of the main reasons why water kefir grains become sick and stop propagating is over- 
fermentation. In general, they should be brewed no longer than 2 days, though they may need 3 days in colder 


I have not played with the kombucha tea colonies in a very long time. There was a fad that was running through the ?80's/early 90's? and I tried it, it was rather tangy from all the acids produced, acetic acid of course is what puts the sour in vinegar, maybe that attests to the health claims of ye olde days, kind of like how sucking on lemons/limes cured scurvy from the ascorbic acid intake. I do remember old farmers almanacs that would list a daily dose of vinegar having health promoting benefits, again not backed up with any decent studies to my knowledge.

Most of the health benefits have not been backed up with any decent studies and a few people react to the kombucha tea with slightly enlarged livers. So I have not kept it up and don't recall if I just emptied my plant down the olde gurlger.



Brewer Pete


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## chappo1970 (3/3/09)

Brewer Pete said:


> ...80's/early 90's? and I tried it, it was rather tangy from all the acids produced, acetic acid of course is what puts the sour in vinegar, maybe that attests to the health claims of ye olde days....


Definitely the 90's I remember my wife, ney, girlfriend (soon to be wife) feeding that stuff to me day and night. Beginning of the "Detox" catch phrase era, god that stuff was vile! Remember brew that black brackish stuff up and keep the culture going and then handing a bit of the culture to friends you conned into trying the "Detox". LOL. Rediscovered it a few years later when making vinegars at home... Reminds me I really should start another red and white wine vinegar soon.

Love this thread BTW!


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## Wolfy (3/3/09)

notung said:


> Brewer Pete, I am interested in different types of lactobacillus fermented drinks like kombucha. Unfortunately after moving house and stopping brewing kombucha it for some time, I no longer have a mother to go off. I have read somewhere about a traditional way of brewing ginger beer using water kefir grains. If you know where somebody might find more information about this, including an exact description of what kefir grains _are_, I'd love to do some reading!
> 
> If I were to follow Wildschwein's directions in maintaining a ginger beer plant, I'd be facing problems in my citrus supply. In a frost-prone part of Central Vic, I'm not sure whether to bother whacking in lemons/limes (although one of the native limes - Citrus glauca, I think - could prove a goer). So I wonder could a GBP culture be maintained without the citrus?


The origins of the 'real' GBP plant (such as what Fermented Treasures sell, see the first post in this thread) are clouded in mystery and since it's 100's of years old no-one really knows where it came from, however there is speculation that it was derived from water kefir, and the two do appear to be related.
There are two GBP yahoo groups with information about the GBP that you may like to join, and they include recipes and other information including some Microbiology and Bacteriology pdf's to read which outline actually goes to make up the Keifr and GBP.

This is taken from the the information supplied by Fermented Treasures regarding the 'real' GBP they sell, which I belive is different to what is commonly grown at home in jars:


> Composition of the Ginger- Beer Plant:
> 
> As Isolated by H. Marshall Ward,
> The Organisms Comprising the Ginger- Beer Plant:
> ...



The instructions to grow and use the GBP plant and other details included in the Yahoo GBP groups dealing with the 'real' GBP do not (in general) include any citrus, but I belive that is a different thing to the cultured GBP that is talked about earlier in this thread, since the two are often confused.


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