Weird Ginger Beer Recipe - Tastes Delicious

[halminator]

All, I need some help!
A mate of mine gave me a Ginger Beer that his Grandfather made and it was a delicious, highly carbonated drink. Eventually after a lot of prompting, I got the recipe from his Grandfather.
Problem is, I'm having trouble trying to understand the recipe. It's not like anything I've ever seen before and would love to make it.

Any help from you experienced GB brewers would be great!

GINGER BEER
Ginger Beer Plant.- Mix together 1 cup sugar, 1 tablespoon ground ginger, the juice of 2 lemons and 1 quart of water. Keep covered, allow to stand for 3 days. Then pour off nearly all the liquid and feed the plant daily for 7 days with 1 large teaspoon sugar and 1 level teaspoon ground ginger. It may be used after 4 days.

To Make Ginger Beer.- Put 5 cups sugar and 5 cups boiling water into a vessel large enough to hold ingredients. (China or earthenware vessel best.) Stir with wooden spoon till sugar has dissolved. Add 1 large breakfast cup strained lemon juice, add scant pint ginger plant. After thoroughly stirring add 1 dessert spoon ginger and 10 quarts cold water. Stir well, cover; stir well again in about 2 hours, cover; stand 24 hours without moving. Strain all clear liquid through muslin, bottle, cork, use in 3 days. Put sediment back into jug, cover, or put into a 21b. honey bottle. Feed daily as directed with 1 level teaspoon ginger and 1 teaspoon sugar. Keep covered.

Makes 10 to 12 quart bottles filled below neck.

This ginger beer may be made from this plant many times.

[KEG]

it sounds like it would work fine in an ideal world (and clearly it did for your mate's grandfather). it's a very similar method as used for making sourdough bread - culturing the same starter dough continuously, potentially over decades.
it seems like it would be very prone to infection though - relying on native yeasts instead of adding yeast gives bacteria a much, much better chance of getting in first.
perhaps, with the use of an added brewing yeast and sanitised containers/utensils, you'd have a much higher success rate with similar flavour? you could also try dextrose or dry malt extract instead of the white sugar for a less cidery variant - but the cider flavour might not go too bad in this recipe.

when it works, i bet it tastes great.

chris

[drsmurto]

Have a read of this thread
http://www.homebrewandbeer.com/forum/vi ... .php?t=332

Tis a lot less complicated method of making superb tasting GB (if i do say so myself).

Relying on wild yeast to do the your fermenting is very very risky.

Cheers
DrSmurto

[atropine]

This is the old fashioned method of making ginger beer. The sugars are not fully fermented so gives it a sweet taste. It's no good because you cant' store the bottles as they will lose sweetness and bottles will explode.

You can store them in the fridge after initial fermenation/carbonation, but if you take them out, fermentation starts again and you get exploding bottles.

[halminator]

This is the old fashioned method of making ginger beer. The sugars are not fully fermented so gives it a sweet taste. It's no good because you cant' store the bottles as they will lose sweetness and bottles will explode.

Thanks for all the info. As for storing though, I don't think I'd have too much trouble with that as this was a damn fine GB, and I doubt it would last long...