Homemade Ginger Beer

By Toby Cecchini

Homemade Ginger Beer
Tony Cenicola/The New York Times; Styling by Toby Cecchini
Rating
5(466)
Comments
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To get the full aromatic flush and fizzy burn of fresh ginger, you have to make your own ginger beer. It is amazingly simple. There’s no sterilization needed, and this method is forgiving — you can actually play about with the levels and ingredients. Moreover, the resulting ginger beer blows anything else you’ve ever had straight out of contention. Take a pinch of packaged yeast and something acidic for the yeast to thrive in (like lemon or lime juice or cream of tartar) along with some sugar syrup and grated ginger, lob it all in a plastic bottle of distilled or spring water, shake it up and stash it somewhere dark and warm for two days. After two days you stop the fermentation by chilling it in the fridge. That’s it. The result is a cloudy, dry mixer with pinprick carbonation and a straight-up goose of fresh ginger. That is thrilling come dark ’n’ stormy hour, not just for its authenticity and superior flavor but also because you can now brag about your homemade ginger beer.

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Ingredients

  • 2ounces freshly grated ginger
  • 4ounces lemon juice
  • 6ounces simple syrup
  • ⅛teaspoon commercial baker’s, brewer’s or Red Star Pasteur Champagne yeast
  • 20ounces non-chlorinated water (filtered, distilled or spring)
  • 1 to 4grams cream of tartar (not necessary, but traditional, to help the yeast and bacteria thrive).
Ingredient Substitution Guide
Nutritional analysis per serving (2 servings)

268 calories; 0 grams fat; 0 grams saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 0 grams monounsaturated fat; 0 grams polyunsaturated fat; 72 grams carbohydrates; 1 gram dietary fiber; 64 grams sugars; 1 gram protein; 66 milligrams sodium

Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.

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Preparation

  1. Step 1

    Take a 1.5-liter plastic bottle of spring water and empty it into a clean pitcher. Use some of it to make simple syrup by stirring ½ pound sugar into 1 cup hot water until fully dissolved.

  2. Step 2

    In a large measuring cup, mix all ingredients and stir well. Funnel back into the plastic bottle and cap tightly. Store in a warm, dark place for 24 to 48 hours. (I put mine inside a box, to contain it if it should blow.) The top of the bottle will expand and become tight. Check it and very slowly release the pressure if it’s looking groaningly tight. Some people ferment it with no top, or with the top on loosely, to allow gas to escape. I suppose if you wanted to get fancy you could spend $1.50 on a fermentation lock and stop worrying about it. If the temperature is quite warm, above 80F, a single day may be sufficient. The longer you let it ferment, the drier the final mix will be.

  3. Step 3

    After 48 hours, refrigerate it to stop the fermentation. Once chilled, you can strain out the pulp and dead yeast, which will have made a sediment on the bottom. Makes 1 liter and will keep up to a week in the refrigerator.

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5 out of 5
466 user ratings
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Comments

John yancsek

Instead of capping the bottle, put a balloon over the neck, then put a pinhole in the balloon. Cap after fermentation.

John

I'm confused. The recipe calls for 6 oz of simple syrup but gives instructions for making twice that much if you really use 1/2 lb sugar (~1 3/4 c. of brown sugar or ~1 1/8 c. granulated sugar) as it states. Are those amounts correct? 1/2 lb of sugar? 6 oz of simple syrup?
Does the recipe assume you'll save the simple syrup for the next brew?

Ashley

First time I made it as written and thought it was more of a lightly gingery lemonade than a true ginger beer. Second time I doubled the ginger and used half lime, half lemon juice and thought it was EXCELLENT! Looking forward to experimenting more in the future...pineapple juice maybe? I burped the bottle once a day and had no problems with fermentation/explosions. I find Reed's to be extremely sweet (33g of sugar per serving!) so this was a wonderful alternative.

Maggie

Hi, could you share what kind of spices you have added with good results. Thank you! Im having fun learning how to make great beer. @My New Go-to For Ginger Beer

Jasmine

This is an excellent and easy recipe for a delicious lemony ginger ale written in the most needlessly complicated way. It could have listed, in the ingredients list, the sugar and water needed to make the amount of simple syrup actually called for, rather than list, weirdly, in the instructions, the amounts for double the amount of syrup needed. It could have listed the cream of tarter in fractions of a tsp like the yeast is, instead of expecting people to pull out their precise scale to measure 1 gram of an optional ingredient. And it could have listed everything in cups or in weight instead of a mix of, I’m guessing, ounces, fluid ounces, teaspoons, and grams. The reasoning behind the writing does not make any sense, but, if you can muddle through, it does result in a delicious product.

Constance S

For those of us who don't always study the instructions closely before jumping in, take note: include only 6 oz of simple syrup in the brew as instructed in the ingredients list. Step 1 is simply giving you the proportions for making simple syrup (thanks NYT; I didn't have to look it up). I love this stuff. (The 2 oz of extra sweetness doesn't ruin it). Question: my first batch was a beautiful pink color, subsequent batches not. Are there different varieties of ginger?

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