How to make ginger ale at home

In the CIS countries, ginger ale is a curiosity and it is much more difficult to get it for your needs than in the West. Meanwhile, between 1860 and 1930 Ginger Ale was one of the most popular drinks in the US, and is now experiencing a rebirth, not only as an attribute of bar culture, but also as an everyday drink. So let’s cook!

At the beginning of the 20th century, bar culture was just beginning to take shape. The bulk of classic cocktails arose much later, and bartenders contented their audience with simple two-component cocktails, some of which often included ginger ale (such as Gin Buck or London Buck – gin with ginger ale).

For the preparation of cocktails, “dry” ginger ale is mainly used, which in 1904 began to be prepared in Canada at the plant of the chemist and pharmacist John McLaughlin. It was “Canadian Dry Ginger Ale” that became a bestseller in the American market, especially during Prohibition, when it was customary to disguise alcoholic beverages as something “dry”.

Ginger ale is a regular sweetened soda flavored with ginger. For us, it is interesting, first of all, because in summer Ginger Ale perfectly quenches thirst, no worse than kvass, and in winter, when heated, it warms and helps to overcome a cold. According to the principle of preparation, ginger ale, of course, is far from real bread kvass, unlike ginger beer, which has a lot in common with our kvass. Most people confuse (or don’t separate) ginger ale for ginger beer, but there is a difference and it’s quite significant.

The beer is much sweeter, “ginger” and often contains alcohol (in the classic version, ginger ale is non-alcoholic or contains a very small amount of alcohol in the region of 0,5-2%). It is also commonly believed that special beer yeast Saccharomyces florentinus is used to make ginger beer (traditionally, a special “sourdough” of yeast and lactobacilli is used), while yeast is not at all necessary for making ale if carbonation is artificial. However, “golden ale” can still be compared with ginger beer.

Most likely, ginger ale was first prepared by the American doctor and pharmacist Dr. Thomas Cantrell sometime in the middle of the XNUMXth century. He marketed his invention through Grattan & Company. It was the so-called “golden ale” dark in color, very sweet, with a strong aroma of ginger and spices.

In today’s recipes, I will offer two recipes for ginger ale, both with and without yeast fermentation.

Alcoholic natural carbonated ginger ale recipe

It is conditionally called alcoholic, since fermentation lasts only 2 days. However, you should not drive after such an ale. For preparation you will need: a 2 liter plastic bottle, a saucepan, ginger root, lemon, champagne or ordinary baker’s yeast, more needed to carbonate the drink, as well as sugar and a little salt. This recipe can be attributed to the classic, it is described in the book by Emma Christensen “True Brews: How to Craft Fermented Cider, Beer, Wine, Sake, Soda, Mead, Kefir, and Kombucha at Home”.

Peel and grate the ginger on a fine grater – it should end up with 2 tablespoons with a slide (be careful here, since ginger is burning and is not recommended for people with stomach diseases). Boil 250 ml of water in a small saucepan, remove from heat and dissolve sugar and salt in it. Add the ginger and let the mixture steep until the water has cooled completely (up to 30 degrees if using baker’s yeast). Add lemon juice and pour the workpiece into a two-liter plastic bottle, then add water almost to the very neck, leaving about 2-3 cm of space.

Taste the resulting drink and add sugar and lemon juice if necessary. Pour in the yeast, shake the bottle well and place it to carbonate away from sunlight at room temperature. Usually the carbonation of the drink lasts from 12 to 48 hours, depending on the fermentation temperature. A sign of the end of carbonation is the swelling of the bottle – when it is hard as a stone, then the drink is ready and it needs to be transferred to the refrigerator for a period of 24 hours to two weeks. You need to open the bottle over the sink, slowly lowering the carbon dioxide. Before drinking, ginger ale must be filtered through a sieve or several layers of gauze. You can drink it right away.

Recipe notes:

1. Glass bottles can also be used, but there is a risk of them bursting. To prevent this from happening, always make one batch in plastic, which will be a kind of indicator of ale readiness.
2. If you don’t like sweet things and want to make a dry ale, use sparkling water in which you dissolve just 1 tablespoon of sugar – it will feed the yeast cultures.
3. Alcohol in this ginger ale will be no more than 1%.

By the way, other ingredients can be used in this recipe. Some “good” ginger ales have up to 400 ingredients. Will fit well: vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, orange peel and even capsicum. Honey can be used instead of sugar. As an alternative, I offer you a very good recipe with mint, while fermentation will take place under a water seal, which means that there will be more alcohol in the drink.

First, prepare the base: boil water, in which we dilute the sugar. We add mint there. Cool the mixture to 30 degrees and add yeast, which can first be diluted in warm water in a ratio of 1:10 and left for 10-15 minutes until fermentation is activated. Next, clean the ginger, three it on a fine grater and add to our sugar-mint mixture with yeast. Cut the lemon(s) in half, squeeze out the juice from them, add to the workpiece and mix well. Leave the mixture for 2 hours in a warm place until fermentation begins.

Pour the fermented ale into a 5-liter eggplant and put it under a water seal (it can be made from a dropper, described in the article on homemade cider) or put on a rubber glove with a hole in the finger. The optimum fermentation temperature is 27-28 degrees. Let the ale ferment for 2 days and filter it through 2 layers of gauze, sweetening if necessary. Pour into plastic bottles and send to carbonate in the refrigerator for 2-3 days.

Ginger ale non-alcoholic

1. Pour 480 ml of water into a saucepan, bring it to a boil and add chopped ginger. Boil the ginger over low heat for 5 minutes. Remove the ginger water from the heat and let it steep for 20 minutes, then strain into a separate container.
2. In a separate saucepan, boil a simple syrup: heat 240 ml of water and add 240 g of sugar to it, after which, heating the syrup, stir it until the sugar is completely dissolved. Let the syrup cool and set it aside.
3. To make ginger ale, pour 120 ml of chilled ginger water, 80 ml of syrup and 120 ml of sparkling water into a tall glass. Add a few drops of lime / lemon juice to the same place and put a slice of citrus in each glass. It is this version of ginger ale that is the most popular in the United States. Plain flavored, sweet soda.

Drinking ginger ale should be very cold or heated, but it is best revealed in cocktails. The most popular cocktail based on ginger ale (beer) is considered the classic Moscow Mule, but I have another article for it. In this same one, I suggest you prepare another mixed drink called: