In my previous post I talked about making a ginger bug and today I will talk about using the ginger bug to start brewing ginger beer.

Recipe

I just halved this one so I could do a 1 gallon batch. That recipe did not give an exact amount of ginger to use, I used about 6.5 packed tablespoons of roughly, freshly shredded ginger.

My Process

1. Put 1/2 gallon water in a large pot on my stove and the other half directly into my carboy
2. Added all shredded ginger (6.5 packed tablespoons) into pot and brought to boil
3. Once boiling I reduced the heat and let simmer for ~20 minutes
4. Strained out the ginger and stirred in 1.5 cups of raw sugar (I also took a sample to measure the O.G.)
5. Funneled the ginger wort into my carboy
6. Put carboy in a small ice bath until the temperature of the ginger wort reached about 80 degrees Fahrenheit
7. Added a good 1/2-1 cup of strained ginger bug
8. Added juice of 1 large lemon
9. Attached airlock and set aside

Results so far

The wort was spicy and sweet. Its original gravity was about 1.029.

Next

Hopefully fermentation starts - if it does I will need to transfer the ginger beer into bottles so that it becomes carbonated. Stay tuned!