Easy Ginger Beer Recipe; this is officially a food blog now, bitches.

You can complicate the heck out this basic recipe, but my buddy Steve put it most succinctly:
"....it is real easy, and cheap, some ginger, some sugar, some yeast in an old 2-liter and when the two liter gets stiff it is ready to drink."
And he's pretty much spot on. Here's my recipe.

For 2 liters of ginger beer, I use:
One "hand" of ginger (roughly half a pound). Peeled is ideal but not absolutely necessary.
2 lemons
one cup of sugar
1/8 to ¼ teaspoon of yeast.

I've used cheap bakers yeast from the grocery store. It works fine. But if you think it imparts a yeasty flavor or odor, just get your hands on some wine, champagne or ale yeast. I bought some Red Star brand champagne yeast online for 50 cents a packet and a dozen packets will last you forever as long as you store the opened packets in an airtight container in the fridge.

Peel the ginger and chop it into tiny pieces. Add the sugar to about 4 or 5 cups of water. Steep the sugar water and chopped ginger on the stove. I usually bring it to a light boil, cover it, and let it sit on the back burner until it is room temp or lukewarm. Once it has cooled, skim the chunks of ginger out with a wire strainer.

Squeeze two lemons and add those to the ginger sugar water mixture. I leave the pulp in. Transfer it all to the container you'll be using for fermentation. You can use a 2 liter soda bottle or something similar….preferably a plastic bottle where you can feel that carbonation pressure has built.

Add the yeast to the mixture and shake it around a little bit to mix it all up real well. MAKE SURE the water is not so hot that it will kill the yeast. Water should be warm / lukewarm. Not hot or cold. Here lately I've even been rehydrating the yeast beforehand so as to ensure that I don't kill it when I add it to the mixture.

Finally, fill your bottle the rest of the way up with lukewarm or cool water. Leave about an inch of space at the top. Cap the bottle tightly and place it in a dark cupboard or cabinet at room temperature for 24 to 48 hours. That time in the cupboard gives it a nice fizz. Actually, I've tried it after just 24 hours in the cupboard and it had plenty of fizz - no need to wait a second day even. I tend to wait 48 hours when I'm using the champagne yeast because it seems to need it. And it requires less time to carbonate in the summer than in the winter. Under the sink is a good place for the brew to brew, but under the sink is typically much cooler in the winter months, so it will likely need more time under there (usually 48 hours tops). Some recipes suggest chilling for 2 days before drinking to let the yeast settle down, but I don't worry about that.

NOTE. You MUST refrigerate after 24 or 48 hours so as to halt / slow the fermentation process. So when you test it and you’re happy with the amount of fizz in the bottle, place it in the fridge. And if you use glass for the fermentation process, make sure it's heavy duty enough to not explode under the pressure of the carbonation. Understand the danger of using glass bottles: they can explode from the pressure of the fermentation / carbonation. For beginner’s, it is preferable to use a 2 liter soda bottle because when the bottle gets hard like it was in the store when you bought it, that means it's ready to drink. Often that only takes 24 hours.

Here lately I've been making 6 bottle batches of ginger beer. I use 16oz Grolsch bottles as they are thick enough to handle the pressure without exploding. And bail-top bottles are absolutely gorgeous and fun to use. It makes me feel like an artisanal hipster. For the 96oz batch, I use one large hand of fresh ginger and 1.25 to 1.5 cups of sugar. I use 2 or 3 lemons and 1/8 teaspoon yeast. It's handy to mark a 96oz line on an empty gallon milk jug with a Sharpie and then fill the bottles from that jug.

And while ginger beer is my favorite, I have also tried my hand at old fashioned root beer. That required getting my hands on sassafras root from some fella in Tennessee who digs it up off his property and sells it on Ebay. I have made horchata soda, blueberry soda, orange soda (Orangina), Nescafe soda, and grapefruit ginger beer. None have been nearly as tasty as the ginger beer.

Oddly, I thoroughly enjoy the process. It becomes ritual. For example, the best way to peel fresh ginger is with a spoon. You'll cut yourself if you use a potato peeler. A spoon really is your best bet because the skin on the ginger is so soft. And I researched the best way to juice a lemon without purchasing a fancy citrus press. All you need is a fork and you'll want to cut the lemon from top to bottom - not side to side. Roll the lemon on the cutting board first of course. I just acquired this bench capper for $20 locally. I plan to start using old Coke bottles to cap ginger beer and give it away to friends.