Ginger Beer

After the disastrous episode of making hard cider from scratch (came out tasting flat and very, very dry), I thought I would try my hand at making some ginger beer. I hope there is still some oomph left in the leftover champagne yeast. It's been lurking in a ziplocked bag in the fridge for about a year. This batch will presumably make 2 liters, which is good since I have two one-liter flip-top glass bottles.

If everything goes right, ginger beer in 2-3 days.

The ingredient ratio comes from The Roasted Root. 

Ingredients

1/4 c fresh ginger, peeled and grated
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
1/4 c fresh lemon juice (1-2 lemons)
1 c cane sugar (add additional 1/4 c sugar if you enjoy a sweeter ginger beer)
1 tsp active dry yeast or champagne yeast
4 cups of filtered water + 5 cups of cold filtered water
One 2-liter plastic bottle with a screw top or a 1-gallon carboy with an S-curve airlock

Directions

Start by adding ginger, cream of tartar, and lemon juice to an 8-quart stock pot. 

Add 4 cups of chlorine-free filtered water. Bring to a boil and add sugar. Boil until sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat and add remaining 5 cups of chlorine-free filtered water.

Wait until the liquid temperature is between 75-100 degrees F. Then, add the yeast and stir.

Cover and let rest in a dark place for 3 hours. I just covered the pot with its lid and stuck it into the oven. Seems dark enough in there.

Use a fine strainer and pour liquid into a 5-quart bowl, to remove the small bits of ginger.

Use a funnel to fill the carboy. Fill airlock with water and attach to carboy. Place carboy in a dark, warm room.

Wait 2 days (sweeter), or 3 days (drier).

Once the beer has finished brewing (e.g., airlock stops releasing CO2), transfer to glass bottles with flip-top lids and store in the refrigerator. This slows the fermentation process and be careful when opening the bottles. 

Kitchen Notes: brewing a good cuppa joe

Let's face a basic fact about coffee. Call it what you want, java, cup of Joe, mocha, mud, or battery acid; your body simply does not care how it gets its daily caffeine fix. Your taste buds, on the other hand, seem to care a lot if the coffee tastes good and isn't weak, bland, burnt, or stale. 

The beans:

Affluent coffee drinkers (and Food Network chefs) will tell you that you should skip the convenience of instant or pre-ground coffee for a DIY grind and brew. This is awfully time-consuming and why alternatives exist.

The grind:

fine - drip-styled, unbleached or gold mesh filters
medium or coarse - French press

The method:

Most electric coffee filter machines recommend 1 level tablespoon (i.e., that plastic spoon that comes with the machine is just that) per 6 oz of finely ground coffee. It's a good start, but if you grind whole beans for this purpose, you may find that this ratio produces a pretty weak cup of coffee.

Today I am drinking a medium grind cup (8 oz) of coffee created from 16 grams of whole roasted coffee beans (Stumptown house blend) plus 1 tsp organic granulated sugar and about one ounce of organic whole milk. Basically, a cup of coffee with milk and sugar. To me, this tastes about right, or what I would expect from a medium roast at a coffee retailer.