Unfiltered Ginger Beer

This was my first, albeit small, step into home brewing.  The goal: a basic ginger beer (think Canadian Dry with gingery chutzpah.)  Rather than use some commercial soda extract or concentrate, I decided to make a simple ginger-infused syrup and work from there.  After a lot of research into home soda making, this was the result:

Recipe:

1.5 cups dark brown sugar
.5 cup granulated sugar
7-9 inches ginger
1-3 limes
64 oz. water
3/16 tsp active yeast

microplane grater/zester
fine mesh strainer
large boiling pot
thermometer
bottle(s) capable of holding contents under pressure

Peel the ginger root and start in on it with the microplane.  I used a full 7 inch piece for this 64 oz. batch, but more or less can be used to taste.  Make sure to collect all the liquid and pulp that is produced.

Mix 24 oz. water with the brown sugar and dissolve over medium-low heat, stirring constantly.  Once the sugar is dissolved, add the ginger.  An easy way to ensure that none of the ginger goes to waste is to rinse the microplane with 8-16 oz. of water and add that to the pot.

Add the granulated sugar and another 24 oz. water (subtracting any added from rinsing the microplane.)  As the sugar dissolves, squeeze in the juice of the limes.  1 lime will add a subtle acidity to a 64 oz. batch.  For an additional layer in the flavor, add the zest of the lime.  Use more limes to taste.  Stir constantly until the mixture reaches 150 degrees.  Let the mixture sit over very low heat for about 10 minutes.  Add the remaining water.

Cool rapidly in an ice or cold water bath.  Let the mixture sit, covered for several hours.  Once the mixture has had time to sit and mellow, you can start bottling.  Make sure that the bottles you are using are sanitized.  Add the yeast to the mixture.  Decant the mixture through the strainer into a bottling barrel or directly into the bottles.  While this will remove the majority of the ginger root and any zest added, there will be ginger solids in the final product.  After the bottles are sealed, place them in a dark area that is between 65-80 degrees.

Thus begins the fermentation process.  Because there is no airlock or mechanism to release the CO2 bi-product of the fermentation, the process needs to be retarded and eventually stopped through cooling.  So, after about 48 hours, toss the bottles in the fridge!  This provides enough time for the yeast to chew through enough sugar to produce adequate carbonation, but not enough time to develop noticeable amounts of alcohol.

A couple of notes:

• Too much yeast, especially if it is generic active dry yeast, will create a bready flavor and excessive amounts of carbonation which can lead to exploding bottles and/or a very messy kitchen floor when the bottles are first opened.
• You can add a variety of spices to the mixture prior to straining and bottling.  Vanilla, cloves, bay leaf, or any other aromatic that will play well with the spicy ginger.
• For this batch, I used a single 2 liter growler for bottling and slightly more yeast than is called for in the above recipe.  
• Some recipes I found call for 1/8 tsp active yeast per 24 oz. liquid.  This seemed a little high, so I went with 1/8 tsp active yeast per 32 oz.  I lowered the yeast content in the recipe since the growler was...slightly over-carbonated...

Next steps:

• play with different sweeteners: honey and molasses come to mind
• more complex flavoring: lower the sugar content and add spices.  Maybe dramatically lower the sugar content and bottle with a touch of priming sugar.
• not having 1/3 of my batch empty onto the kitchen floor, table, and counter.