ginger beer plant.

I'm thinking about keeping a ginger beer plant going.
I'll do some interweb reading before I do but I know you guys populate the interwebs.

A few thoughts.

I figure there's 3 types of ginger beer.

1. The flavoured soda. No alcohol.
2. Traditional Ginger beer with low ABV
3. Beer with ginger.

I'm looking for the water sugar ginger variety which I guess would be No.2
Dead easy, figure the abv I want and dial in the amount of sugar/gallon I want.

I'd like to also keep a ginger plant ticking over.
For me this just seems like keeping a yeast cake going from batch to batch but you do it with a starter sized batch first rather than the remnants of a first brew.
Am I on track so far?

A few questions.

Would it be so bad if I used a yeast cake to start a plant?
Would it be bad if it's kept going with powdered ginger?
How can I make a lower ABV version? is it purely less sugar and wouldn't it need to be sweeter to make it tasty?

Is there a definitive ginger beer thread I've missed.


In the mean time to get me going. Here's the plan.

A big handful of peeled root ginger. Yes I know that's a lot for a gallon but keep with me.
Sliced rather then grated or bruised. equal amount of water and sugar by volume. Boil.
Add the root ginger to a mason jar and cover with the syrup. Now we have a jar of candied ginger preserve. Add the remaining syrup to a half a demijohn of cold water. and top up with water.
Lucky guess or experience gave me an OG of 1040.
I've added some Witworth yeast I had in the fridge and I will wait and see.
If there's not enough ginger buzz after 4 days I'll add a little fresh grated root.







I think this thread may be better in the mindless mumbling.

Orfy, the ginger beer noob.

I have no answers for you. This is a subject that has interested me, but I have never gotten around to doing anything about it. Have you seen this:
Basic Brewing? : Home Brewing Beer Podcast and DVD - Basic Brewing Radio? 2006 (go down to the Aug. 31, 2006 show).

Have you thought about what kind of sugars you are going to use for the ginger beer itself? I really suggest getting yourself some Jaggery or some other form of unrefined sugar, and maybe some dark/amber candi sugar. This type of sugar will leave residual sweetness and flavor without having to depend too much on stevia/splenda/xythol, etc. YMMV.

I just bought some Ginger Beer Plant, but I'm waiting for the weather to get a little warmer before trying it out. I'm looking to do the traditional ginger beer. Here is a really good blog entry on making it

The Mad Fermentationist: Ginger Beer Plant 101

I'm wondering if there is a way to do a hybrid ginger beer/beer.

I normally only buy unrefined sugar but part of the reason for doing it now is I had a KG of refined going spare.