Root Beer Ginger Ale

Jack Schmidling Productions, Inc.
18016 Church Road ~ Marengo IL 60152
Phone:815 923 0031 ~ Fax:815 923 0032 ~ Email:arf@mc.net


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Ginger Ale: one of many soft drinks made from roots.


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Making soft drinks at home is not only a fun project but they can be produced at a fraction of the cost of commercial products. Furthermore, knowing what goes into your drinks is also very satisfying.

One of the easiest to make is ginger ale and this recipe and process is all you need to get started.

I recommend that you do not alter the recipe on the first batch. On subsequent batches you can alter the amount of ginger, sugar and vanilla to suit your own taste.



Ingredients: (for 1 gallon)

Procedure:

Slice the ginger into thin sections and add them to two cups of boiling water. Simmer this on very low heat for 20 minutes. While this is simmering, boil the gallon of water and two cups of sugar for one minute and set aside. Pour the ginger and liquid into a blender and blend on high for about one minute. Pour this blend into the sugar water, through a strainer. With a soup ladle, pour a few cups of the hot brew through the remaining pulp to extract a bit more of the ginger flavor. Cool to room temperature. When cool, add vanilla, yeast and stir until disolved. Let sit for about 30 minutes. Then bottle and age.

The simplest, safest and least expensive method of bottling is to use one-litre plastic soft drink bottles with screw caps. These can be sterilized by rinsing in a mixture of household bleach and water and then rinsed with clean water.

After filling, the bottles should be set aside at room temperature for about 48 hours, or until hard (check by squeezing). Then refrigerate to finish the aging process.

Leaving the bottles at room temperature too long will cause overcarbonation. Using glass rather than plastic bottles can cause shattered bottles. Another nice feature of the plastic bottles is that they can be re-carbonated if only partially consumed. Just let it sit out over night with the cap on and refrigerate it when hard.

This procedure is extracted from our video "BREW IT AT HOME". For the complete details and graphics, check out a copy at your library or order a copy for yourself

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