Homemade Ginger Ale

I saw Good Eats last week (with Alton Brown, love it!) and the show was about ginger. Alton Brown has taught me to make Ginger Ale, one of my favorite things. I don't often drink it because of all the nasties in it, unless I can get some Bundaberg Ginger Beer from BevMo.

It's really easy, I'll go over how I made it, here is Alton's Recipe.

Here are most of the things that go in it (I forgot the lemon oops!)

Sorry for the awful pictures, I had to use my phone.

I grated the ginger (1.5oz) with my lil grater (as I don't have one for ginger) but I chucked in most of the pulp that didn't go through anyhow. I added this to the saucepan and added the sugar (6oz), and water (1/2 cup).
I was surprised at how little ginger that was, I'd bought a few hands thinking it would need more.

I brought that to a boil, then turned it off and went to cut out some new patterns (more on that later).

I then used my wire mesh strainer to separate the solids, and put it into a pouring jug. I squeezed the ginger and a ton of liquid came out of it, I kept squeezing until it was just a few drops coming out.



I poured the syrup into my empty 2 liter soda bottle. Added 1/8 teaspoon of active dry yeast (actually had to eyeball it.. smallest measure I had was 1/2 tsp), 2 tablespoons of fresh squeezed lemon juice, and 7 1/2 cups water (I don't know why, the recipe says 7, but I misread it).
I put the top on then shook it vigorously, then re-read the part where it said to do it gently, and promptly stopped shaking it. I left it on the counter, and so tomorrow I'm going to crack it open and see if it's done!


BFN