A little story that I remember from my childhood of this Ginger beer:
My father decided he was going to make it once and we got a big bucket to fill glass coke bottles. Well, he went to release the pressure from the bottles daily, but one day he couldn’t get it open, so he took a drill to drill a hole in the top of the bottle. We lived in a long open plan house, so the kitchen was next to the dining room which was next to the living room with no walls dividing the rooms. My dad was working at the kitchen sink and the TV was on the opposite side of the long room. The bottle of ginger beer exploded spraying the entire room from the kitchen to the TV in the living room! Everything was sticky with Ginger Beer. All I remember is my mom saying “I’m taking the dogs for a walk” fetching the lead and disappearing for an hour. My dad and I started cleaning up, my mom finished the job when she got back.
So below is the 2 recipes in the book. We make the bottom recipe of the two. next to the recipe it says: Mrs Hawyes, so I am guessing my grandmother got the recipe from a Mrs Hawyes! Here are the 2 recipe’s that come from the recipe book in their original format. My conversion of the recipe is below this image.
INGREDIENTS:
- 12 litres cold water
- 9 cups sugar
- 5 heaped teaspoons cream of tarter
- 5 heaped teaspoons tartric acid
- 2 teaspoons dry yeast
- a few raisins
- 2 tablespoons ginger
- Put sugar in water and stir until dissolved ( I made a half batch in a 9 litre bucket)
- Add other ingredients and stir a little.
- Leave to stand for 24 hours before bottling (recipe calls for an enamel or earthenware container, I use plastic cool drink bottles, just release pressure every day or so)
- Strain through a cloth or oil filter before bottling.
The Ingredients:
The sugar water in the bucket:
The mixture before leaving it to stand for 24 hours:
After bottling (see I recycle!):
