GINGER BEER RECIPES

This recipe excerpt comes from the book “Jam It, Pickle It, Cure It” by Karen Solomon published by Ten Speed Press. Its a lovely book with all kinds of old fashioned things you used to love to eat when Grandma cooked them. It also has some lovely modern recipes that would be interesting to attempt.

Just bought this book today and I buy hundreds being a caterer. Imagine my surprise and delight to see the Jamaican Ginger Beer Recipe there. Bought the book for the lovely marshmallow recipe in it. Looks far better than I make so I look forward to trying it.

Haven’t tried it yet but it will be next on my list. I would be more inclined to call this a cordial drink or a syrup than a beer as there is no fermentation involved.

So here we go…….

Jamaican Ginger Beer

Ingredients:

2½ lbs ( 1 kg) fresh ginger roughly peeled (  Note from Bonnie :va va voom thats a lot of ginger !)

4 cups of water divided

1 cup of freshly squeezed lime juice ( approx. 8 - 10 limes) (Bonnie: If no limes available you could use lemons but this may alter the ultimate taste of the drink)

2½  to 3 cups of sugar (  Bonnie: I have a sweet tooth so it would be 3 cups for me due to the amount of fresh ginger)

Method:

The book tells us to blend or liquefy the ginger for 3 minutes with 2 of the cups of water .

( Bonnie: Ginger can be as tough as old boots and of course it depends on how young and fresh it is. It is my suggestion that you cut it into as many small pieces you can before attempting to put it into the blender. It is also very stringy).

Pour and strain the resulting liquid into a bowl or jug and then put the pulp back into the blender then add 1 more cup of water and repeat the process.

Then repeat the process for a third time with the last remaining cup of water.

Press on the solids and try to squeeze out as much juice as possible then discard the mashed ginger residue.

Add the lime juice and the sugar to the liquid. Test it to see if the sugar content is to your liking and if not add more until you feel that it is.

Pour over ice or add some lemonade or soda water.

The book says it will store in the fridge for two weeks but I don’t think it would last that long in our house !

Filed under: Ginger Beer Recipes, Ginger Cordial Syrup Recipes