# Easy non-alcoholic Ginger Beer (no bug required)



## Shayne Edwards (Jun 9, 2018)

This is one of those old generational recipes, my mum used to make it, as did her mum etc. and here I am 40 odd years past my childhood occasionally making it as well. When I was a wee tacker, soft drinks (soda pop?) was an absolute treat that we would have delivered in wooden crates at Christmas time each year. So when we could convince our mother to make a batch of ginger beer during the year, us kids were in 7th heaven. Even though we knew that the glass bottles were as dangerous as a hand grenade with the pin pulled we loved every bottle that didn't blow up under the sink.

Recipe
In to a large boiling pan place the following;
10 litres of water
5 cups of raw sugar 
8 tablespoons of ground ginger powder (20ml measure not US 15ml)
2 tspns tartaric acid (5ml measure)
Juice of 4-5 lemons
Bring this to the boil, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and cover with lid/ clean towel. 

Because I'm not so brave anymore, I clean and sterilise plastic softdrink bottles to hold the ginger beer. 

Once the liquid has returned to room temp. add 3-4 sultanas to each plastic bottle (approx. 1 to 1.25 litre capacity) and add the liquid. Replace the caps and tighten. Store them in a dark place, I don't use the sink area like my mum because I'm fairly certain all the chemicals I store under there aren't really good for food grade items. A cardboard box in the shed isn't a bad option though.

Depending on ambient temperature, the sultanas will cause the batch to carbonate. in 7-10 days. The ginger beer gets progressively dryer to taste. Releasing the caps after the 7-10 day period is a pretty good idea too. 

I am making another batch this weekend. My neighbour loves the stuff and I need to make amends after a small issue from my ginger wine making fiasco.


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## Shayne Edwards (Jun 9, 2018)

Moderators please feel free to remove if this doesn't fit. Cheers Shayne


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## Shayne Edwards (Jun 25, 2018)

Actually after thinking that this is non-alcoholic all my life, maybe I am wrong? Surely there is wild yeast on the dried sultanas, which causes the carbonation? 
I did a SG reading and it was at 1.040 at bottling when adding the sultanas. Will check it again in 10 days or so.


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