Does anyone grow ginger or make ginger ale?

[Bobberman]

I never considered ginger till I drank some Venors Ginger ale tonight! I looked up ginger and it has some great properties for health and the stomach! I wondered about Venors and found that it is the oldest surviving soft drink first made in 1866! what do you know about growing gingr?

[rainbowgardener]

https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=235119#235119

https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=232787#232787

any particular reason you put this question in the Tomato Forum?

My experiment with starting ginger wasn't successful, but I am going to try again in the spring once it is warm enough to do it outdoors.

(PS... I'm not nuts, some kind mod must have moved it! )

[Bobberman]

I thought I had it in vegetables! I think I am going to grow ginger this year! I will start it in the greenhouse!

[lorax]

I don't grow at the moment (just harvested) but will again once I move. There didn't seem to be a point to putting in a crop just to have to try and move it green.

To make ginger ale, you first have to make ginger syrup, and that means that you first have to make candied ginger (which is awesome anyhow).

Start with these ratios:

1 lb of ginger
3 C of sugar (your choice; I use panela which is the rawest sugar available, but the recipe also works with demererra or white)
3 C of water

Peel the ginger (use a spoon and scrape it along the surface of the roots - the skin comes right off). Chop it into 1/8" rounds or small cubes, and rinse it well.

Dissolve the sugar in the water, bring to a boil, then add the ginger, and keep on a low boil until the liquid reaches the consistency of maple syrup or thin honey. Strain out the ginger and roll it in white sugar to coat it. Filter the syrup into bottles.

----

OK, now you've got ginger syrup. Go out to the store and get your favourite brand of tonic water. In Canada, that's Schweppes for me; down here it's H2Ola! In your glass of choice, just cover the bottom of the glass with ginger syrup, and top up with tonic water. Voila! Gingerale, the old-fashioned way. This is a bit spicier than commercial gingerales, because the ginger hasn't lost its kick. Commercial varieties use far too much sugar in relation to their ginger, and I find them to be bland and unimpressive.

[PunkRotten]

I thought about making ginger ale too. I make water kefir and the drink has natural effervescence. I also have a juicer so I was thinking of juicing the ginger and maybe adding some sweetener and seeing how it turns out. Apple and ginger go well together too.

[greenleaf]

I will try that. Do you know how to make ginger beer?

I don't grow at the moment (just harvested) but will again once I move. There didn't seem to be a point to putting in a crop just to have to try and move it green.

To make ginger ale, you first have to make ginger syrup, and that means that you first have to make candied ginger (which is awesome anyhow).

Start with these ratios:

1 lb of ginger
3 C of sugar (your choice; I use panela which is the rawest sugar available, but the recipe also works with demererra or white)
3 C of water

Peel the ginger (use a spoon and scrape it along the surface of the roots - the skin comes right off). Chop it into 1/8" rounds or small cubes, and rinse it well.

Dissolve the sugar in the water, bring to a boil, then add the ginger, and keep on a low boil until the liquid reaches the consistency of maple syrup or thin honey. Strain out the ginger and roll it in white sugar to coat it. Filter the syrup into bottles.

----

OK, now you've got ginger syrup. Go out to the store and get your favourite brand of tonic water. In Canada, that's Schweppes for me; down here it's H2Ola! In your glass of choice, just cover the bottom of the glass with ginger syrup, and top up with tonic water. Voila! Gingerale, the old-fashioned way. This is a bit spicier than commercial gingerales, because the ginger hasn't lost its kick. Commercial varieties use far too much sugar in relation to their ginger, and I find them to be bland and unimpressive.

[applestar]

Thanks for the recipe, Lorax.

[lorax]

I will try that. Do you know how to make ginger beer?

I don't grow at the moment (just harvested) but will again once I move. There didn't seem to be a point to putting in a crop just to have to try and move it green.

To make ginger ale, you first have to make ginger syrup, and that means that you first have to make candied ginger (which is awesome anyhow).

Start with these ratios:

1 lb of ginger
3 C of sugar (your choice; I use panela which is the rawest sugar available, but the recipe also works with demererra or white)
3 C of water

Peel the ginger (use a spoon and scrape it along the surface of the roots - the skin comes right off). Chop it into 1/8" rounds or small cubes, and rinse it well.

Dissolve the sugar in the water, bring to a boil, then add the ginger, and keep on a low boil until the liquid reaches the consistency of maple syrup or thin honey. Strain out the ginger and roll it in white sugar to coat it. Filter the syrup into bottles.

----

OK, now you've got ginger syrup. Go out to the store and get your favourite brand of tonic water. In Canada, that's Schweppes for me; down here it's H2Ola! In your glass of choice, just cover the bottom of the glass with ginger syrup, and top up with tonic water. Voila! Gingerale, the old-fashioned way. This is a bit spicier than commercial gingerales, because the ginger hasn't lost its kick. Commercial varieties use far too much sugar in relation to their ginger, and I find them to be bland and unimpressive.

Ginger beer in the Jamaican sense is this same concoction with a heavier percentage of unfiltered ginger syrup - hence spicier and cloudy. Jamaican ginger beers will also typically add an additional souring / bittering agent like a few drops of the oil of grapefruit peel or grapefruit juice. The other thing about Jamaican-style ginger beers is that you may choose to candy another batch of ginger in the same syrup you used for the initial batch, to concentrate and raise the spice levels.

Ginger beer in the British sense is a disgusting alcoholic concoction and should never be drunk by anyone, ever. IMHO. If you wish to try it, there are plenty of recipes on the net, but I'm not going to help you there.

[greenleaf]

Ginger beer in the Jamaican sense is this same concoction with a heavier percentage of unfiltered ginger syrup - hence spicier and cloudy. Jamaican ginger beers will also typically add an additional souring / bittering agent like a few drops of the oil of grapefruit peel or grapefruit juice. The other thing about Jamaican-style ginger beers is that you may choose to candy another batch of ginger in the same syrup you used for the initial batch, to concentrate and raise the spice levels.

Ginger beer in the British sense is a disgusting alcoholic concoction and should never be drunk by anyone, ever. IMHO. If you wish to try it, there are plenty of recipes on the net, but I'm not going to help you there.

I will try and make a batch and let you know how it works out.

[!potatoes!]

my wife and I make a molasses ginger beer the older way - lightly fermented. we make a 'ginger bug' - basically a regularly-stirred cup of grated ginger and sugar, that after a few days (and adding a bit more of each each day) comes alive as a culture of the yeast that was present on the skin of the ginger (and also some from the air, no doubt)...

after that, we bottle a strong ginger tea with lemon and/or lime juice, sweetened with molasses, with the bug added, and about a week later, we chill the bottles...very nice. mildly sweet, nicely spicely gingery. and actively fizzy.

a do a fair amount of wild fermentation...I suppose to some, some of the ideas might seem a bit sketchy, but it works well...best to be somewhat circumspect when you don't really know what-all's in something, but the truth of the matter is, we're awash in these yeasts (and in the case of krauts, bacteria) anyway. might as well put some to work.

I make a fair amount of honey-wines with wild-cultured yeasts, too. just a matter of how far to take things.