Ginger beer plant

Have become interested in making a ginger beer plant out of simple ingredients. I put fresh ground ginger in a liter of water with 20 chopped raisins and a little sugar. This went into a 3 liter wine bottle and shaken up. About 3 days later I added more ginger and sugar. 2 days later I put the end of my homemade cider in there (about 20ml of lees).

The intent is to form a colony of lactobacillus and saccharomyces to make ginger ale with.

I see a little haze forming and some white clusters forming on the (now floating) raisins. There has been an airlock, but plenty of room in there to store oxygen. I see a little activity on the airlock now, and I am thinking my expire kent is going well so far.

Anyone else try something similar? What is a good way to culture lacto?

good luck with that expire kent (??)
it's easy to get things to ferment from wild bugs and cider lees but you aren't going to magically get the combination of organisms that produce the polysaccharide clumps of the ginger beer plant. well, if you do i will have to change my assessment on the presence of a deity, currently we're firmly on 'no'

Experiment* don't know what autocorrect meant. Lol yeah, probably not quite the same. Maybe I'll buy some real stuff to grow next year.

How do you get them to form the polysacccaride clumps? I need more GBP and would rather not spend $15 on getting another batch.

Have you tried splitting your batch to make more? I would think the clumps form when the correct balance of cultures are present. I'd be interested to find any old recipe describing how to make one.

Yeah I tried splitting them, at one point I had 3 batches of soda going at once. But no appreciable increase in GBP was noticed.

I wonder if any of the scoby winds up in solution? Can I bottle carb soda using GBP?

There is no old recipe that will tell you how to get the polysaccharide clumps lovingly referred to as GBP to grow. If you are familiar with water kefir grains, which will make a nice ginger beer by the way, they are also polysaccharide clumps and are composed of, usually, Lactobacillus brevis : identified as the species responsible for the production of the polysaccharide matrix that forms the grains, Lactobacillus casei rhamnosus, Lactobacillus alactosus, Lactobacillus casei casei, Lactobacillus pseudoplantarum,
Lactobacillus plantarum, Streptococcus lactis, Streptococcus cremeris, Leuconostoc mesenteroide, Saccharomyces florentinus, Saccharomyces pretoriensis, Kloeckera apiculata, Candida lambica, C. valida, & possibly others. Anyway, the water kefir grains (WKG) have been sourced back to a desert cactus, a prickly pear if memory serves...exactly how and why--I have never been able to find that data. Then you have a milk kefir grain(MKG) which is composed of so many things you will scream if I include them, but the MKG can be grown if you happen to have some fresh goat's milk and a sheep's intestine and can keep feeding fresh milk into the intestine which you are using as a carrying device, which gets gently agitated while attached to the side of your hip or llama. And then weeks later you notice these clumps that look like cauliflower florets or popcorn having taken up residence in your milk bag (which was forgotten for a few days or weeks & upon opening and expecting rancid milk you found a tasty cultured, slightly tangy alcoholic laden milk and the grains). You shared them with friends, and they have now made their way across the world. But how the GBP came to be, who knows.

Raudhbjorn said:

Yeah I tried splitting them, at one point I had 3 batches of soda going at once. But no appreciable increase in GBP was noticed.

I wonder if any of the scoby winds up in solution? Can I bottle carb soda using GBP?

Click to expand...

When I had access to true GBP (the ones that came from www.gingerbeerplant.net) and are the size of the pearl-sized medication you would find inside a gelatin medication capsule, maybe the size of acina di pepe pasta...I was fortunate if the GBP showed any growth after 5 consecutive 3-day to 5-day ferments of basic ginger beer, it is a VERY VERY VERY slow grower---the reason the true GBP is so hard to find from reputable sources these days. The WKG will grow by 100% with each ferment under the perfect conditions (mineral rich, sugary water). The best thing to help ensure growth of the GBP is to make sure to use mineral rich water, let them have access to oxygen, and don't skimp on the sugar.

Thanks for that Saramc. I think I'll break out my GBP and fix it up a nice sugar-wort shake and let it eat untill it can't eat any more.

but what are you going to feed your llama

No llama. I ate it.

saramc said:

When I had access to true GBP (the ones that came from www.gingerbeerplant.net) and are the size of the pearl-sized medication you would find inside a gelatin medication capsule, maybe the size of acina di pepe pasta...I was fortunate if the GBP showed any growth after 5 consecutive 3-day to 5-day ferments of basic ginger beer, it is a VERY VERY VERY slow grower---the reason the true GBP is so hard to find from reputable sources these days. The WKG will grow by 100% with each ferment under the perfect conditions (mineral rich, sugary water). The best thing to help ensure growth of the GBP is to make sure to use mineral rich water, let them have access to oxygen, and don't skimp on the sugar.

Click to expand...

Seems like you have experience with this, so I am going to ask, because I am having trouble finding information on this stuff anywhere.

I bought some from Jim in UK (www.gingerbeerplant.net) and it seems to be working ok. I have brewed 3 batches which taste pretty good. I don't drink it all that much, so I want to stop brewing but I am afraid to kill it. He says to store it, dry it out. Any advice on how to do that?

I think mine did grow a bit from when I received the 50g, but it may just have expanded due to being in solution.

ognam said:

Seems like you have experience with this, so I am going to ask, because I am having trouble finding information on this stuff anywhere.

I bought some from Jim in UK (www.gingerbeerplant.net) and it seems to be working ok. I have brewed 3 batches which taste pretty good. I don't drink it all that much, so I want to stop brewing but I am afraid to kill it. He says to store it, dry it out. Any advice on how to do that?

I think mine did grow a bit from when I received the 50g, but it may just have expanded due to being in solution.

Click to expand...

Quite easy to dry....Spread the GBP (straight from the last batch, no need to rinse it) in a thin layer on a non-stick surface...I use coffee filters. If the grains(that is what the little blobs are, the grains of the GBP) are "quite wet", you can allow to rest on a coffee filter with several paper towels underneath & then transfer to the coffee filter "drying liner" for actual drying. Cover with a single layer of coffee filters and allow to air dry, stir/turn in a few hours (if you remember--no biggie). They will dry quite quickly actually, as they are small. I have placed in my microwave overnight with just the light on LOW & they are dry in the morning. Air circulation will help in the absence of a little heat (never exceed 105F or the culture dies off), so you can weigh down the covering coffee filter and then turn a desk fan on LOW, aimed just so the air circulates above the GBP, not blowing directly at it. Once crispy dry, assuring there is NO water remaining in the GBP you can place in airtight container/vacuum seal, etc and stash them with your yeast(s) in the refrigerator. LIFESPAN: indefinite when properly dried and properly stored...If do not want to use regularly, every 6 months, just to preserve GBP integrity, I would rehydrate (2:1 water:sugar) for 48 hours and then ferment a few batches, dry/store grains again, repeat.
Jim's Facebook page for gingerbeerplant.net may be helpful: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/Ginger-Beer-Plant/184784001541132
I particularly like his Scrumpy recipe: http://www.gingerbeerplant.net/Scrumpy.php

Have fun!

Thanks for the help. Let's see if I got this right...

I spread it out across a coffee filter on top of a cooling rack, with another filter on top, and had a box fan (from across the room) blowing gently over the top of it. I flipped the whole thing once after a few hours.

The next day, the whole thing was bone dry. The GBP was crusty and rock hard, but stuck to the filters. I rubbed the filters to get all of them free, then sealed the "crumbs" (almost the size and consistency of large grains of raw sugar) in a vacuum package (love my food saver), and popped it in the fridge.

Does everything sound ok here? Is there a better way to avoid the GBP sticking to the filters?

No not really, they stick but easily come off. You could try setting on silpat liner but they will take a bit longer to dry. You did just fine.