Drinks

3 Ingredient Homemade Fermented Ginger Beer

Look, fermentation is cool. That's just how it is. This drink is an almost miraculous moment, where you literally just take some sugar, and some ginger, mix it in water, let it sit, and then in a few days, you have a powerful fermented mixture to make your very own ginger beer without adding any commercial yeast at all. You are basically harnessing the power of nature to make a Moscow Mule. So yeah, that's pretty cool.

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Prep
2-3 days
Cook
5-8 minutes
Total
2-3 days
Serves
8
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3 Ingredient Homemade Fermented Ginger Beer
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Ingredients

‘Ginger Bug’ Ingredients, First Day:

  • 2 cups (500ml) filtered water
  • 2 Tbsp (28g) granulated sugar
  • 2 Tbsp (22g) finely chopped or grated ginger (skin on is fine)

Ginger bug feeding, every 24 hours:

  • 2 Tbsp (28g) granulated sugar
  • 2 Tbsp (22g) finely chopped or grated ginger (skin on is fine)

Ginger Beer:

  • 2 quarts filtered water
  • 1.25 cups plus 2 Tbsp (273g) granulated sugar *see notes*
  • 1/4 cup (54g) ginger, grated
  • 1/2 cup (110g) strained ginger bug liquid
  • Juice of 3 lemons

*notes on sugar in ginger beer: You're welcome to make the ginger beer much less sweet if you prefer. I would say the lowest you can go on sugar is 1/2 cup (170g).

Directions

  1. To cultivate your own wild yeast, combine water with sugar, ginger and place in a 1-quart glass/plastic container.
  2. Mix together until the sugar is dissolved, and cover with a cheesecloth. Let it sit for 24 hours.
  3. Moving forward, add the same amount of ginger and sugar every 24 hours until it becomes fizzy. This should take about 2-3 days.
  4. Once the ginger bug is fizzy, pour 2 quarts of water into a large pot. To that, add sugar and ginger. Bring up to a boil and then reduce the heat to a simmer and let it sit for 5-8 minutes. Let it cool down naturally until it reaches room temperature, leaving all of the ingredients in there to steep.
  5. Strain your liquid through a fine mesh colander. Make sure to press out the juices.
  6. Next, add in ½ cup of your strained ginger bug and the juice of 3 lemons. Mix together until thoroughly combined and transfer that mixture to some flip-top bottles. Make sure to leave 2 inches of head room.
  7. Let them sit out at room temperature with the flip bottle tops locked, for 3-6 days or until they’re fizzy.
  8. Once they’ve reached that point, you can refrigerate them; but make sure you’re opening the top and burping them once a day.

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