Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Ginger Ale part 2

I took an early taste of the Ginger Ale about 8 hours before it was supposed to be ready (48 hours) and I LOVED it. Really.. it was quite amazing. Since I felt it was pretty much ready, I could stand waiting another 4 hours, then I popped it in the fridge.

I read another review of it on the food network that said it didn't have a "gingerey" flavor, and it smelled like yeast! That's not what mine is like at all. I don't know if I did something different.. used something different? Mine has that hint of spicy that I love so much in ginger, without being overpowering. It's sweet but not sugary, and I would never have guessed the carbonation came from the yeast.

My main problem with it is that I only made one bottle... Lou and I are polishing it off super fast, but it's going to be hard to wait _another_ 48 hours for the new one to ferment. Perhaps I need two bottles? One to drink and one to brew?

Finally, does anyone have any idea how I should count these calories? It's not the commercial stuff which I assume would have different calories, so I just don't know how to count it.

BFN!

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Jen,
Your Great Grand mother used to make Ginger Ale by the dozens of bottles.
In those days (the fifties I remember well) their were no plastic bottles so they used old 750oz beer bottles and bought the caps and stamped them on. They would make 2 dozen at a time and would have batches on the go right through summer so they never ran out. As far as calories are concerned, just count the sugar and cause its so good don't worry too much. Just ration yourself to a couple of bottles a week. The recipe sounds about right and how it was made all those years ago. The skills and the will to make all this evaporated as more fizzy drinks came on the market and it was cheaper and quicker to just buy them already done. Dad

Unknown said...

Just to add to the history, one of the other reasons why they made a number of bottles of ginger ale is that several would explode as the yeast did its work and expanded the mix. A ginger plant was permanently growing adjacent to the production line in another bottle and the fresh ginger used to make the next batch.

Unknown said...

Dad that's a great story! going to copy your comments into my blog!

Unknown said...

not quite finished
just remembered it was called ginger beer, the ginger ale thing came later.

 

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