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Lemon Ginger Beer
Pour eight quarts of cold water over six thin-sliced lemons, with one and a half pounds of sugar and a little less than an ounce of ginger root. Let this come to a boil before adding one tablespoonful of cream of tartar, then strain and let stand till cool, when a yeast cake dissolved or broken into bits should be stirred in and the whole allowed to stand overnight. In the morning mix thoroughly and bottle (corking tight), placing bottles on the side in cool place. In twelve hours the beer will be ready for use.
A two-gallon batch of quickly fermented small beer, ready in a day. Everything hinges on controlling the pressure that builds after bottling.
- Bottling and pressureTwelve hours of active yeast in a sealed vessel generates real carbonation, and corked glass bottles laid on their side can burst. Use screw-top PET soda bottles or swing-top beer bottles, fill to leave headspace, and refrigerate as soon as a plastic bottle feels firm to stop the fermentation.
- YieldEight quarts of water makes about two gallons, or roughly twenty 12-ounce bottles. Halve the whole thing if that is more beer than you want to store.
- The yeast cakeA 'yeast cake' of the period might be compressed fresh yeast (a commercial cake of that sort ran to roughly half or two-thirds of an ounce) or one of the dried yeast cakes then sold; the recipe's 'dissolved or broken into bits' allows either. For two gallons in twelve hours, 1/4 teaspoon of active dry yeast or a packet of ale yeast is ample; more only speeds the pressure build.
- Ginger root'a little less than an ounce' refers to whole root, sliced and bruised with the flat of a knife so it gives up its oils during the boil; period recipes may intend either fresh root or the whole dried (race) ginger then sold by grocers. Ground ginger is a poor substitute at this weight and will cloud the liquid.
- SugarOne and a half pounds is about 3 1/3 cups. The yeast consumes only a small part of it in twelve hours, so the finished drink stays sweet and the alcohol stays under about one percent.
- Cream of tartarAdded once the liquid has come to a boil, it acidifies the wort slightly and helps invert some of the sucrose, giving the yeast easier sugar to work on. It is not a leavener here and can be left out with little loss.
- Temperature before pitchingRead 'cool' as no warmer than about 90F. Yeast stirred into liquid much above roughly 130F will be killed, and the batch will simply sit overnight doing nothing.
- LemonsSlice thin and include the peel for the oil, but strain the fruit out as directed before the liquid stands; peel and pith left in will make it bitter.
Ginger beer of this kind was a household "small beer" rather than a brewery product: sugar, water, an aromatic, and enough yeast to make it lively, drunk young because it did not keep. British recipes for it circulate from the late eighteenth century onward, and the drink crossed into American kitchens alongside root beer and spruce beer, all of them barely alcoholic and all of them made to be consumed young. That this version appears under the lemon says something about how such collections were built: the lemon is the subject, and the beer is one more use for a fruit that also gave the household its lemonade, its pies, and its flavouring for much else. Cream of tartar, a byproduct of winemaking sold cheaply by grocers, turns up repeatedly in such recipes as a cheap and readily available acid.