Naturally grown Ginger Beer Plant questions

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Cyclops_smiley

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I have a ginger beer recipe, as authentic as any I imagine, from Australia. I have set up my plant using ginger, sugar, lemons, and water. Like I said, authentic. I've kept my plant going for a couple months now and I'm getting a lot of carbonation floating up. There are bubbles floating on top constantly. Despite these wonderful signs I do not yet see any of the grains that are supposed to form. My questions are, Should I expect to have grains after this long? And, how can I encourage grain growth?

Thanks all
 
I just recently started looking into ginger beer. Did you send off for a "real" ginger beer culture for your plant or did you just start your own?

If so, care to share the recipe for starting your plant?
 
You will never form ginger beer plant grains by naturally collecting yeast, you have a simple 'ginger bug'. You need to obtain an established GBP with confirmed cultures, containing the yeast and bacterium Saccharomyces florentinus and Brevibacterium vermiforme. I know of two confirmed, highly recommended sources, short of buying from a germoplasm, Jim @ www.gingerbeerplant.net and www.yemoos.com; both ship internationally. I would never buy from anyone else, there are people selling yeast ginger bugs & water kefir grains but calling them ginger beer plant....a sham and a shame.
 
Thanks for the info. That was pretty much the impression I had gathered from my own google searches. I was hoping you'd found a DIY short cut :)
 
Can anyone explain the difference between GBP and water kefir grains? I can't seem to find info on the differences anywhere.

FWIW, I also purchased the GBP from gingerbeerplant.net, as well as trying my own 'natural'/wild bug. Didn't have a lot of success with either compared to champagne yeast, unfortunately.
 
Gingerman, check out the 'kefir king' Dom's website, http://users.sa.chariot.net.au/~dna/kefirpage.html, he explains in detail about water kefir and the multitude of organisms one can typically find when you work with water kefir grains. You are talking 20+ organisms varying from lactobacilli, lacto&streptococci, and yeasts, whereas a real GBP grains has two organisms already identified in an earlier post. Dom has great article on water kefir ginger beverage too.

A wild ginger bug and gingerbeerplant.net GBP are two completely different things, as is wine yeast.

And yemoos.com has some comparison info on WKG vs real GBP, including photos.
 
Wow. Thanks, saramc. Both those sites have a wealth of info I think it will take me (at least) all weekend to digest. Much appreciated!

And now, of course I have to order some water kefir grains and see if I can make a probiotic, delicious ginger beer. :)
 
gingerman said:
Wow. Thanks, saramc. Both those sites have a wealth of info I think it will take me (at least) all weekend to digest. Much appreciated!

And now, of course I have to order some water kefir grains and see if I can make a probiotic, delicious ginger beer. :)
Click to expand...

If you are on Facebook, check out Kombucha Nation!: Cultures, Health and Healing, you can get water kefir grains + others for just the shipping all the time...plus a great group. If I had excess I would send them but I just gave away three cups of them, 1-2 tbsp at a time!
 
Done and done. I'll check that out as well.

No worries - I'm just going to order them from yeemos. Perfectly happy to support a resource like that anyway. I've hesitated since my GBP didn't do well (although I got a few good pints out of it) and didn't live very long. But it sounds like the instructions yeemos sends are much better than what came from gingerbeerplant.net. Thanks for the thought, though. :)
 
saramc said:
Gingerman, check out the 'kefir king' Dom's website, http://users.sa.chariot.net.au/~dna/kefirpage.html, he explains in detail about water kefir and the multitude of organisms one can typically find when you work with water kefir grains. You are talking 20+ organisms varying from lactobacilli, lacto&streptococci, and yeasts, whereas a real GBP grains has two organisms already identified in an earlier post. Dom has great article on water kefir ginger beverage too.

A wild ginger bug and gingerbeerplant.net GBP are two completely different things, as is wine yeast.

And yemoos.com has some comparison info on WKG vs real GBP, including photos.
Click to expand...
So, are you saying water kefir grains are better, in that they have more probiotic strains?
 

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