About me May 8, 2010
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I’m a fifty-something Australian bloke (although I still have a NZ passport) living on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland. I have a nice little cottage in the Hinterland. I work 4 nights of 10 hours a week at a resort and have a little DVD distribution business too. Unmarried, I live with my 17 year old cat, Specs, who turned up outside my bedroom window one night as a 6-8 week old kitten when I lived in Rockhampton, Qld.
For company, I have two great mates. Rob lives here on the Sunshine Coast and is having his 50th Birthday in a couple of weeks. Steve, who’s 40, lives in Brisbane with his two kids, Lachlan & Tom – great kids!
I also have a bunch of sisters (4) and my parents in reasonably close proximity.
I’m also a member of a Bushwalking group that I send out reminder emails for each weekend, for our Tuesday walks.
I figure I’ll probably use this blog to write about my everyday thoughts and activities. I usually get tired of doing things after the initial excitement wears off, so I’ll be interested to see how much I use this. Time will tell
12 May 2010
And here I thought I’d have interesting stuff to write about, but instead, I’m just bored. Had a nice walk yesterday morning along the Maroochydore/Mooloolaba beachfront. Rob forgot we were going for a walk and (probably) went to the Gym instead so ended up going by myself, as usual. It’s good that way, gives me time to think about things. This time it was about Kara and Lea mostly. Oh well, back to work!
Ginger Beer Recipe trials May 8, 2010
Posted by mmykll in Uncategorized.Tags: beer experiments, ginger beer recipe, mango beer, monstera beer
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I’ve been making Ginger Beer for a couple of months now and wanted to record my efforts.
After trolling the internet I came up with this recipe that works for me and this is how it goes:
For preparation I got a 1 litre coffee jar, and an offcut of muslin material from BigW for about $4. The muslin comes in handy as a cover for the jar and a filter when mixing the Ginger Beer. I also am lucky enough to have access to as many 1.25 litre PET drink bottles as I need. I prefer the ‘waisted’ ones, like Coke, ’cause they allow a little extra room for expansion when the pressure builds up, and you can see when there’s lots of pressure there (a ‘straightened’ Coke bottle looks quite funny, especially with the label still on)
Firstly, get the Ginger Beer Plant working in a jar by adding:
About 500 ml water
2 teaspoons ground ginger
2 teaspoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon dry yeast.
Give it a good stir, cover it with a piece of muslin held in place by a rubber band, and continue to add 1 teaspoon sugar & 1 teaspoon ground ginger per day for about 7 days. I prefer raw sugar to processed sugar as I think it adds to the flavour. You can use grated fresh ginger if you like, but you’ll need to use about 2 teaspoons per day.
After the 7 days, get ready to bottle your mixture, you’ll need:
2 lemons
3 cups sugar
1 litre hot water
3 litres cold water
4 X 1.25 litre PET bottles
a container to mix it that take more than 5 litres (bucket)
Put the sugar into the bucket, add in the hot water and stir to dissolve all the sugar. Juice the 2 lemons and add the juice and then the cold water. Give the Ginger Beer plant a final stir and filter it through the muslin. I usually do this into a separate container, then pour into the mix. Pour the mix into the bottles to just above the drink label, this gives room for the extra air pressure. Put them aside for about 7 days before consuming your brilliance!.. I like to really chill the bottles down by putting them in the freezer for a couple of hours first. If you want to spice it up a bit, try it with a dash of vodka and squeeze a slice of lime in to it – Excellent!
Now, for those that to play around with stuff, I’ve also tried a few other flavoured ‘beers’ using the same method. Mango tasted quite nice. I got fresh mango, mashed it up and froze it into iceblock trays. Then added two mango iceblocks instead of the ginger each day into the ‘plant’. I also had a go with the fruit of the Monstera plant and that tasted quite nice too. I did find though, that fruit like these tended to float on the top of the plant, so used a coffee plunger for the plant keeping the fruit in the water so it could infuse properly.
I did have one failure. I tried banana using chopped up banana chips being added to the plant daily instead of the ginger, but the end result tasted awful – the lemon and banana flavours didn’t merge well. Will probably try another mix without lemon juice later, maybe.
Today, I’ve also bottled two different ones. One being from a ginger and mango beer plant, and a plain ginger beer plant, but both with 2 cups sugar and 1 cup of honey. Will post results later
I’ve also just bottled one using grapefruit juice. I have a tree that produces very strong tasting grapefruit, so thought it’d make a nice beer. For this one though I used the ‘overnight’ method of making Ginger Beer that I found on the net. Adjusting it slightly, I used:
2 1/3 litres water
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 teaspoon dry yeast
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
juice of 3 grapefruit.
I mixed it all up in a bucket, left it overnight, then bottled the filtered mix into 3 X 1.25 litre bottles. Will post my results later when it’s ready – should be another 7 days, to be sure!
