You know how it is! You want to give a present, haven't a clue what the recipient really wants, needs or might like, it has to be cheap to post. While searching you just happen to pass a little shop or a stall selling odd, unusual and inexpensive goodies. A little packet catches your eye! Ah, this'll do nicely.

So, here we are, on the receiving end. It's close to Christmas. A small sealed and carefully wrapped package arrives. Behaving properly, after all there's no point in spoiling the surprise by peeping before the day, the gift is taken out of the stout brown envelope (just in case there's a letter inside) and is popped under the tree, where it looks splendid in its Christmas paper. On Christmas Day, in between stuffing and eating the turkey there's a glorious lull, the ideal time to unwrap gifts from family and friends. The little package is opened to reveal ... a strong brown envelope!

OK! So it wasn't a plain brown envelope. I've still got it. On the front are black line drawings and writing revealing the contents to be a Ginger Beer Plant. On the back are full instructions to make, apparently, about 35 pints of ginger beer. Just add water, sugar and lemons it says, and the resulting brew will make others exclaim, "Gosh! It's super!" and, "Absolutely Smashing!"

Produced by Tobar Ltd. of Harlseston, the kit contained a small cellophane pack of dried yeast and a much larger pack of ground ginger. The clear instructions for making ginger beer are printed on the back of the envelope. Greeted by "Ooh, that's unusual!" from hubby and me, and viewed with total suspicion by the pre-teen offspring, all too well aware that ginger beer comes from the supermarket, not Mums kitchen! The pack was tucked away in a cupboard perhaps to be used another day!

Somehow it survived various cupboard declutters and stayed hidden away until last summer when it was given its last chance and I decided to have a go. Nothing lost to begin with except a little sugar, and everything to gain because our, now quite a bit older, children do indeed drink lashings of ginger beer during the warmer months. Hoping to continue in our quest to reduce e-numbers and synthetic flavourings, we saved a few fizzy drink bottles to wash, sterilise and use for our own home-made ginger beer.

I rarely follow instructions exactly and precisely. I've made wine and beer so have a fair amount of experience of home brewing. Admittedly not always successful, but we learn by, and drink, our mistakes!

I decided to have a look around. The Internet is a very useful place to look for information and I found several sites with various recipes, they all seemed just about the same. So I decided to stick, almost, to the instructions I had.

I used a large (400g) coffee jar, sterilised with just-boiled water because I hadn't got any sodium metasulphate. Made sure there was a metal spoon in the jar to stop it cracking. As instructed, I mixed the yeast with a pint of cooled, previously boiled water, added two teaspoons of ground ginger and two teaspoons of granulated sugar. Gave it all a jolly good stir, popped the lid on tightly enough to stay put, yet loose enough to allow any gases to escape. Then waited, expectantly.

The next day, according to the instructions I added the same amounts of sugar and ground ginger. Err, nothing happened. No froth on the top, no bubbles, nothing. I wondered if the yeast had died, whether the water had been too hot and had killed it. I decided to be patient, living things have the strangest way of surprising us.

Yeast is a single celled organism. At the right temperature it 'eats' sugars, uses oxygen and divides to make more individual yeast plants. The by-products of growth are carbon dioxide and alcohol. We benefit from the gas; it makes dough rise and beers fizz and froth. The alcohol in varying concentrations enhances many popular drinks. Yeast occurs naturally as the bloom on plums and grapes. It is capable of surviving, dry and dormant, for many years, waiting for a suitable food supply to come along. This is what I think had happened to mine. After three days I noticed a bubble or two and after four a lovely froth had developed on the top of the liquid. We were in business!

I decided to count the "week" from when the bubbles started appearing in earnest, carried on adding sugar and ground ginger daily and gave it an occasional stir, not because it said so but because I felt like it!

What's next?
>> Filter the brew through muslin into a large bowl.
I hadn't got any muslin so used a coffee filter, resting it in the inverted cut off top of a lemonade bottle and strained the liquid into the bottom part of the same, sterilised, container.

>>In a second, sterilised, 8-pint container, place 2 pints of pre-boiled water and dissolve one and a half pounds of sugar.
I bought some budget 'baby equipment' sterilizing tablets and carefully cleaned everything I would need. I used a large plastic mixing bowl.

>>Then add the juice of two lemons and the strained liquid. Top up with a further five pints to make a gallon.
>>Pour into sterilized bottles and leave to mature for a further week.
Leave plenty of head room, the drink will fizz violently when the bottle is opened.
>>Put the yeast residue back into its jar and start the process all over again. After the next brew divide the yeast and give some to a friend or start a second plant

A week after bottling the family were still rather suspicious, it didn't look like ginger beer, was almost clear, but they were willing to have a go. It was pleasant, fizzy, very sweet and lemony rather than tasting of ginger. Success! The whole lot vanished in a couple of days and they were eager for the next brew.

Since then I've experimented quite a lot. I no longer use ground ginger, instead, while the brew is filtering, which takes ages, I grate a large chunk of scrubbed but not peeled fresh ginger into my largest saucepan, fill the pan with water, bring it to the boil and let it simmer until I need it. I sieve this, use some to make the ginger beer and the rest as the basis for fermenting. For us it's nicer, adds a little more bite and makes the ginger beer cloudy.

"My" recipe is as follows: -

~Starter kit~
*Ingredients*
25 g (approx 1 ounce) of yeast
teaspoon cream of tartar
100 g (around 4 oz) root ginger, washed and grated.
500g (around 1 lb) sugar
2 lemons, or equivalent bottled juice.

*You will also need*
A large lidded jar
A large mixing bowl
A large saucepan
A sieve
Fizzy drink bottles, smaller ones are best, to hold 5 litres (about 1 gallon) of liquid, with plenty of headroom.
Sterilising tablets
Coffee filter papers
A funnel
A jug

~What to do ~
>Sterilise the jar.
>Add about half a litre of cooled boiled water
>Mix in the yeast and add a spoonful of sugar
>Add a teaspoon of cream of tartar

>Stir, cover loosely but securely, and put to one side on a worktop or draining board.
The first day or so there may be a fairly violent reaction but it will calm down.

>During the following week continue to add a 5ml teaspoonful of sugar every day.

~After a week, although you can leave it longer if you want~
>Filter the yeast liquid through a coffee filter; this may take a couple of hours.

~While waiting~
>Sterilise all glass and plastic equipment, including the bottle lids.
>Coarsely grate the scrubbed ginger, add to about 1½ litres (3 pints) of water in a large saucepan. Bring to boil, cover and simmer until needed.
>Rinse bottles.

~The action~
>Sieve the ginger mixture and put 1 litre (2 pints) of hot liquid into the large mixing bowl.
>Dissolve about 500 g (1 lb) granulated sugar in this liquid.
>Add the juice of 2 lemons.
>Add the sieved fermented liquid
>Top up to make about 5 litres (1 gallon)
>Leave to cool, cover with a clean tea towel.
>Using a jug, pour into the sterilized bottles; make sure you leave plenty of air space and screw the lids on securely.
>Put the bottles to one side and leave for a few days to mature, a week is best, but ours rarely lasts that long. I keep the bottles in a cardboard box on the larder floor.
>Put the yeast back into its jar; add 500 ml (a pint) of the now cooled ginger solution and a teaspoon of sugar.

After making two 'brews' halve the 'plant', either start two new ones, throw one half away or give it to a friend.

~Beware~
The drink is likely to be lively, so open bottles with care.
If you leave it to brew for too long it won't hurt, but there will be some alcohol content.

~*Some ginger facts*~
Ginger has been used as a successful aid for digestion.
Ginger tablets are taken by some to reduce joint inflammation and symptoms of arthritis.
Ginger beer was sold from barrows on London streets during Victorian and Edwardian times, a cottage industry offering safe soft drinks.
Cod bottles, now collectable, were developed to keep the fizz in ginger beer.
The case of Donaghue v Stevenson, 1932, when Mrs Donaghue apparently drunk ginger beer containing a decomposed snail which made her unwell, was an important development in the law of tort and duty of care.

Looking online I've discovered that you can buy a newly packaged kit like the one I was given, costing less than £3, from Hawkins Bazaar in Basingstoke, Bristol, Canterbury, Cheltenham, Exeter, Milton Keynes, Norwich, Salisbury, Southampton, Tunbridge Wells, Winchester and Windsor. However, bakers yeast is just fine to use, as is ground ginger, both are available from almost any supermarket.

Happy brewing! Cheers!

09/06/2005 Review resubmitted, unaltered, due to site software problems.

© Mum52