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Ginger-Beer
Put the thinly-peeled rind of four lemons into a large earthen pan with the strained juice, two ounces of bruised ginger, two and a half pounds of loaf sugar, and half an ounce of cream of tartar. Pour over these ingredients two and a half gallons of boiling water, and, when lukewarm, add two table-spoonfuls of fresh brewer's yeast. Stir the liquid, and leave it to ferment until the next day. Skim the yeast from the top, pour the beer carefully from the sediment, and bottle for use. The corks should be perfectly sound, dipped into boiling water just before being used, and then securely wired down. The ginger-beer will be ready for use in two days. Probable cost, 1s. 10d. Sufficient for three dozen and a half ginger-beer bottles.
A small-batch home brew of the sort every Victorian household made in summer. The quantities are large by modern standards and the bottling stage is the part that needs judgement.
- Scale it downTwo and a half gallons is about 11.5 litres, filling the 42 bottles the recipe claims. Quartering everything gives a manageable 3 litres from one lemon, 1/2 oz ginger, 10 oz sugar and a scant 1/8 oz cream of tartar.
- Loaf sugarRefined cane sugar sold in cones, broken up with sugar nippers. Ordinary granulated sugar is the direct equivalent by weight.
- Bruised gingerWhole dried ginger root, cracked under a rolling pin or pestle so the flesh splits without powdering. Two ounces to two and a half gallons is mild; fresh root ginger can be substituted, but it is far less concentrated than dried, so considerably more is needed and the exact ratio is a matter of taste -- the flavour is brighter and less resinous.
- Cream of tartarPresent to acidify the liquid and help invert the sugar, not as a raising agent. Half an ounce is about four teaspoons for the full batch.
- Brewer's yeastFresh live barm skimmed from a brewery fermentation, which few cooks can get now. Use about a teaspoon of dried ale yeast or champagne yeast for the full quantity, rehydrated first; bread yeast works but leaves a doughy note.
- Pitch at the right temperature"Lukewarm" here means no hotter than blood heat. Boiling water poured onto the yeast kills it, and pitching much above blood heat gives harsh, solventy flavours.
- Bottling is the hingeThe beer goes into the bottle still fermenting, and the gas that makes it fizzy also builds pressure. Use proper swing-top or crown-capped beer bottles rated for pressure, never screw-top glass or repurposed wine bottles, and release a little gas daily. Corks wired down, as here, were the period's answer to the same problem.
- Refrigerate to stop itAfter two days at room temperature move the bottles to the fridge, which slows the yeast to a crawl. Left warm for a week they will keep building pressure until something gives.
- AlcoholA ferment this short leaves a low-alcohol drink, but not an alcohol-free one; how much depends on temperature and how long it is left, and longer fermentation before bottling raises it.
Ginger beer as a fermented household drink is generally traced to eighteenth-century Britain, and by the middle of the nineteenth century it was being made both at home and commercially on a large scale, sold in the thick stoneware bottles that still turn up in gardens and riverbeds. Cassell's places it among the everyday economies of the kitchen: the costing of 1s. 10d. for three and a half dozen bottles -- about a halfpenny a bottle -- was the point, bought ginger beer being appreciably dearer. The recipe belongs to a period when brewer's yeast was a genuine kitchen ingredient, begged or bought fresh from a local brewery and used for bread as readily as for drink. The bruised ginger, lemon and cream of tartar combination is close to what was also sold as "ginger pop", and related to the stronger, sweeter ginger wine, though the latter generally used considerably more sugar and a longer working.