How to make alcoholic ginger beer from scratch. This article originally appeared on Food. There are two types of people in this world people who like their ginger beer sweet, subtle, and unassuming, and people who like their ginger beer to kick them hard in the back of the throat. I guess there are also people out there who dont like ginger beer, but for now Im going to pretend they dont exist. You know real ginger beer if youve tasted it. The second you take a sip, it stomps on your tongue with steel toed boots, taking glee in reminding you how spicy raw ginger truly is. My version of ginger beer is like the unfiltered, uncensored, hardcore stuff, but with a teensy little bonus alcohol. While England has been sipping on alcoholic ginger beer for hundreds of years, America has just begun to discover this gem. Well, Brits, your secrets out. In addition to its spicy, addictive taste and its boozy bonus, alcoholic ginger beer is also plain old fun to make. If you dream of being a full fledged brewmaster but lack the time, equipment, and beard, ginger beer is the perfect starting point. Ginger beer is ginger ales sinister cousin much or ginger and a little less sweet, but still mostly nonalcoholic. It can be made easily at home with simple. Ginger bug, a slurry of fermented ginger and sugar, forms the basis for homemade, traditionally fermented sodas including root beer, mint sodas, or fruitbased sodas. There are a lot of instructions available for making nonalcoholic versions of ginger beer, but for those who want to savor this beverage in its pure form you can try. FTZ/CPRP/F3B4B48F/FTZCPRPF3B4B48F.MEDIUM.jpg' alt='Ginger Beer Recipe Alcoholic' title='Ginger Beer Recipe Alcoholic' />With only a jar, some pantry staples, and a few clean soda bottles, you can have a solidly delicious brew in only three weeks. It might take some experimenting to get it right, but the journey is half the fun. This recipe is really more like a set of guidelines you must follow your instincts. Alcoholic Ginger Beer. Makes several liters of ginger beer. Freshly grated ginger. Granulated sugar. Juice of 2 lemons. Catherine Lamb. First things first Start by making a plant for your ginger beer. Stir the yeast into the water until dissolved. Add in 1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger, 1 tablespoon sugar, the lemon juice, and the sliced jalapeo, if youre using it. Stir to combine. The jalapeo will give your ginger beer that kick you can feel in the back of your throat if you dont want it that strong, feel free to omit it. Catherine Lamb. Pour the mixture into a glass jar one thats large enough for the liquid to fit comfortably, with a bit of extra space. Cover with a clean, dry kitchen towel and secure it with a rubber band. Place the jar in the warmest place in your house next to your heater, near the refrigerator, or by a heat vent. Every day for the next week youll have to feed your plant. First off, feel the bottle it should be slightly warm. If its too cold, your yeast will go into hibernation and stop working, and if its too hot your yeast could die. Theyre a very temperamental bunch. Take the towel off your jar and add another tablespoon of grated ginger and another tablespoon of sugar. Stir until the sugar dissolves, then replace the towel and put your plant back in a warm place. Do this every day for a week just think of it as a babysitting job. Catherine Lamb. After about a week, you should see small bubbles floating to the surface of your plant. You can keep your plant at this stage longer The more you feed it, the more concentrated the ginger flavor will become. Dont stress too much about measurements you can adjust your flavors later. Now its time to bottleThink ahead to how many bottles of ginger beer youll want to make. Make sure to use plastic soda bottles glass bottles could explode from carbonation. Estimate how much water youll need to fill these bottles two thirds of the way full. Then, dissolve enough sugar into the water so that it tastes very sweet as sweet as soda. Dont worry about overdoing it the sugar is there to act as food for the yeast, so most of it will get eaten up and turned into alcohol. You can always adjust the sugar content later. Catherine Lamb. Using a cheesecloth, strain the plant out into a large measuring cup or bowl. Next, use a funnel to add the sweetened water to the bottles until they are two thirds of the way full. Add about a cup of the plant liquid to each clean, dry soda bottle more if you want your ginger beer stronger, less if you want it less intense. Stir with a chopstick to combine. You can dip your finger in and taste here to see if the flavor concentration is to your liking. If it tastes watery, add more plant liquid. Seal the bottles tightly with their caps and put them back in the same warm place where you once kept the plant. Squeeze the bottles daily to test how theyre carbonating. Catherine Lamb. After a few days, they should become difficult to compress when they feel like a rock and are impossible to squeeze at all, slowly start to unscrew the cap just until you hear hissing, but do not open it all the way. Whenever the bottle is impossible to compress, let out the carbonation, then seal it back tightly. In a week and a half to two weeks, the yeast should have eaten up most of the sugar in the bottle. This means your ginger beer is ready to open up and taste Theres not a hard and fast rule for how to tell when this is done youve got to go by intuition and trial and error. If you have multiple bottles, open one up and taste test after a week and a half. Add more sugar or lemon juice if you think your ginger beer needs it. Catherine Lamb. Serve ice cold with citrus wedges and a rum float if youre feeling dangerous. Cream Of Mushroom Pork Chops there. Make sure to consume the whole bottle within 2. You should probably throw a party to show off your incredible brewing skills. Catherine Lamb. Its impossible to gauge the alcohol content of your ginger beer, but it should be a bit less than that of a light beer. Enjoy See the full recipe and save and print it here. Ginger Beer Recipe Serious Eats. HTML Hints. Some HTML is OK lt a hrefURL linklt a, lt strong stronglt strong, lt em emlt em Comment Guidelines. Post whatever you want, just keep it seriously about eats, seriously. We reserve the right to delete off topic or inflammatory comments. Learn more in the Comment Policy section of our Terms of Use page. If you see something not so nice, please, report an inappropriate comment.