Homemade Ginger Beer

I was reading Paula's blog yesterday and on it she had a recipe for ginger beer - I just had to try it!

It was ABSOLUTELY delicious. Never again will I purchase ginger beer from the shop.  Even RMan, who normally doesn't drink ginger beer, declared it delicious and downed 1 1/2 glasses.

So, here goes:

Keep an empty 2lt bottle (2 1/2 pint) from a previous cooldrink.  Rinse it out well.

Take 35 - 45 gm (1.25 oz) of unpeeled root ginger and chop roughly.  Place it in a food processor and add 1/4 cup sugar, and the zest of one lime or lemon (I took a lemon from my tree, washed it, and used that) - process until everything is finely ground and syrupy.

Using a funnel, pour 3/4 cup sugar and 1/4 teaspoon yeast into the rinsed bottle.  Add the syrupy mixture to the bottle, and the juice from the lemon you zested.  Using water of your choice (I used tap water which had been filtered), add water to the bottle leaving 2.5 - 5cm (1 - 2") headspace at the top of the bottle.

Place the cap on tightly and shake well to mix (the skin of the ginger will float at the top).

Leave the filled bottle at room temperature until the bottle is hard - roughly 1 - 2 days.  (I left it lying on it's side and 22 hours later mine was rock hard).

Place in the refrigerator until cold, then pour into a glass using a strainer (to strain out all the bits) and enjoy.

I'm so happy that the bottle was hard after 22 hours - I seriously couldn't wait to try it.  And the 4 hours it was in the fridge were the longest ever...

The only change I will make to the recipe next time is to use 55 - 60gm (1.8oz) root ginger - I like my ginger beer strong, so that it tickles the back of my throat :-)

Thanks Paula, for sharing the recipe.  Does anyone have a recipe for any other cooldrinks that they would like to share?