1First, ensure you have a strong and active gingerbug. It's made by mixing chopped ginger, sugar, and water in a mason jar.
2Feed the gingerbug with more sugar and ginger for a few days until it becomes active and foamy.
3Prepare your fermentation vessel. For a 2-gallon batch, a food-safe 2-gallon bucket with a lid, spigot, and airlock is suitable. Avoid metal containers unless they are stainless steel.
4Add 2 gingerbugs, 100g of chopped fresh ginger, 32oz of sugar, and 2 gallons of filtered water into the fermentor.
5Mix well to dissolve the sugar.
6Close the fermentor with a lid and an airlock, or place a shot glass over the hole, or slightly crack the lid to allow CO2 to escape.
7Let it ferment for one week. At this point, the gingerbug fermentation will reach about 1.3% ABV.
8After one week, add 6g of American ale yeast to the fermentor.
9Close the fermentor and let it ferment for another 1-2 weeks until the fermentation is complete and the gravity reaches 0.996, resulting in about 7% ABV.
10To make it fizzy, bottle condition the ginger beer by adding a little sugar to bottles or a PET keg and then transferring the fermented ginger beer into them.
11Close the bottles or keg and let them sit for about 2 weeks to carbonate, then transfer them to the fridge to chill before drinking.
12Serve and enjoy your alcoholic ginger beer.
Ingredients
2 x Ginger Bugs
100 g Chopped Ginger
32 oz Sugar
2 gal Filtered Water up to
6 g American Ale Yeast
Equipment
Mason jarFermentor (juice bottle, apple cider bottle, 2-gallon bucket, PET keg)LidSpigot (optional)Air lock (optional)SpoonHydrometer (optional)PET bottlesGlass swing top bottle (optional)Bottling wand (optional)Picnic tap (optional)
Tips
Avoid metal containers for fermentation, except for stainless steel.
You can skip the gingerbug step and go straight for ginger and beer yeast, but the gingerbug adds complexity and a slight sour funkiness.
Use plastic bottles for bottle conditioning to avoid bottle bombs and easily gauge pressure.
You can reserve some gingerbug liquid to restart your gingerbug for new fermentations.
If you don't have an airlock, you can place a shot glass over the hole to keep bugs out and let CO2 escape, or crack the lid slightly.
Do not seal the fermentor completely or it could blow its lid.
Bottle conditioning with added sugar creates carbonation without needing CO2 tanks.