More on Ginger Beer
Here are more details on ginger beer by Michael Warshauer who has a nice blog (link below) on cooking in Mexico. As he indicates, fresh ginger is widely available in Mexico, used both for medicine and in cooking, the latter much more frequently than cookbooks would suggest.
I enjoy ginger beer, and once I located excellent ginger roots, first in Mexico City’s Mercado San Juan, then, on occasion in Pátzcuaro’s mercado, I experimented with making iginger beer.
Besides the basic recipe, covered on my kitchen blog, http://mexkitchen.blogspot.com/2008/05/ginger-binger.html
(Aside: IMO, apound of sugar ma be far too much sweetener for a gallon of water. I also prefer to use light or medium brown sugar, so that the ginger beer has a golden color when finished.)
I also started making spice infusions or syrups, with, for example, a base of piloncillo syrup plus dried tangerine peels, freah lime, cinnamon sticks, Sichuan peppercorns, and small, dried red hot chiles and more ginger.
After the first fermentation of the basic ginger beer, I keep it refrigerated about 12 hours. After drinking off about a pint, I add a little of the spiced syrup to the fermenter (a 2.5 liter refresco bottle), then top it with purified water. Then it’s left out for a second fermentation. At that point, it really hits its stride.
Saludos,
Mike
