Brewing a fizzy ginger beer at home with fresh ginger
Ginger beer is a good first ferment: cheap, quick and full of flavour. It also teaches the most important lesson in home fermentation, which is that sugar and yeast in a sealed bottle make pressure. Here is how to get the fizz without the danger.
What ginger beer is
Traditional ginger beer is a fermented drink made from ginger, sugar, water and usually lemon. Yeast eats some of the sugar and makes carbon dioxide, which gives the fizz, plus some alcohol. It is not a beer in the brewing sense. There is no malt and no hops. But the process is the same at heart: sugar, yeast, time and control.
How strong it gets depends on how much sugar is fermented. A short ferment that is chilled early stays low in alcohol and sweet. Leave it longer and it becomes drier and stronger. Treat any home ferment as an alcoholic drink, keep it away from children and check what your state allows for home fermentation.
A simple 4 litre recipe
- 150 to 200 g fresh ginger, washed and finely grated, skin on
- 350 to 400 g white sugar
- Juice of three lemons
- About 4 litres of filtered or packaged drinking water
- A pinch of dry ale or champagne yeast, or a ginger bug (below)
Simmer the grated ginger in about a litre of the water for 15 to 20 minutes. Stir in the sugar until dissolved. Add the rest of the water cold, then the lemon juice. Strain out the ginger. When the liquid is at room temperature, below about 30 °C, add the yeast.
Indian ginger is often sharper and hotter than the ginger in many Western recipes, so start at the lower amount and taste. Older, more fibrous ginger tends to be hotter. Young ginger is milder and more floral.
Yeast or a ginger bug
Commercial yeast is predictable. A small pinch of dry ale yeast is plenty for 4 litres and gives a clean, crisp drink.
A ginger bug is a wild starter: a jar of water, grated ginger and sugar, fed daily for about five days until it fizzes. It works with the yeast and bacteria on the ginger and in your kitchen. The result is more complex and less predictable. In Indian heat a bug can become active in two or three days. If it smells of nail varnish, vinegar or rot rather than fresh, sour ginger, throw it out and start again.
Carbonating without bottle bombs
This is the part to take seriously. Ginger beer goes into bottles with plenty of sugar left in it. In a warm room the yeast keeps working and pressure rises fast. Glass bottles not designed for pressure can shatter.
- Bottle after one or two days of fermentation in the jar, while it still tastes sweet.
- Use plastic soft drink bottles, at least for one bottle in every batch. Squeeze it each day. When it feels rock hard, the whole batch is ready.
- Move every bottle to the fridge as soon as that happens. Cold slows the yeast almost to a stop.
- Keep bottles in the fridge and drink them within a week or two. Open slowly over the sink.
At 30 °C, a typical Indian kitchen in summer, bottles can go from flat to fully carbonated in a day. In a 20 °C room it can take three or four days. This is the same physics as bottle conditioning beer, except beer brewers ferment out the sugar first and add back a measured dose. Ginger beer is bottled with an unmeasured amount still in it, so the fridge is your control.
Flavour ideas
Once you have a reliable base, add a little lime zest, a few crushed black peppercorns, a stick of lemongrass or a spoon of jaggery in place of some sugar. Jaggery brings a molasses note; our guide to brewing sugars explains how different sugars ferment. A few mint leaves in the glass, not the ferment, keeps things fresh.
Where to go from here
Ginger beer teaches the basics of fermentation quickly: yeast needs sugar and the right temperature. Fermentation makes gas and alcohol. Control comes from measuring rather than guessing. A hydrometer turns guesswork into numbers. It tells you how much sugar is left and how much alcohol you have made.
Those same principles, applied to malt, hops and yeast with proper temperature control, are how beer is made.
Common questions
How much alcohol is in homemade ginger beer?
It depends on how much sugar ferments. A short ferment that goes into the fridge early stays low, while a long ferment can reach the strength of a beer. A hydrometer reading before and after tells you.
Can I use glass bottles?
Only bottles made for pressure, such as swing top or crown cap beer bottles. Include a plastic test bottle in the batch so you know when to refrigerate. Never use decorative or thin glass.
Why is my ginger beer not fizzy?
The yeast may be dead or too cold, the bottles may not be sealed or it simply needs another day. Keep it somewhere warm and check the test bottle.
Can I use dried ginger powder?
Fresh ginger gives a much brighter, cleaner flavour. Powder can taste dusty and does not settle out well.
