🚀 go-pugleaf

Kate Morgan wrote:

> When I were a little lass up North I remember a bloke coming around the
> village with a pony and flat cart selling ginger beer out of a big
> barrel, it would not be allowed now I suspose but modern ginger beer
> never tastes quite good enough, any sheddi recipes please
>
> kate

I like this stuff:
http://www.fentimans.com/index.asp

My granny used to boil up rhubarb and ginger - 1/4lb of chopped fresh
ginger to a lb of rhubarb, 4 megooves.  cookdown, seive, and strain.

mix with sugar - it has to ferment - and some brewer's yeast, and some
more fresh ginger.  Make up with water and let the yeast work overnight.

Then strain and  bottle it - with a tiny bit more fresh ginger, some
allspice or something like that - for the secondary ferment.

Don't know about quantities.  Lbs and Gallons sound about right.

You can make nettle beer as well, with nettles instead of the ginger.

You can   make orange beer, using orange peel.  Wiv a clove in.

Kate Morgan wrote:
> When I were a little lass up North I remember a bloke coming around
> the village with a pony and flat cart selling ginger beer out of a big
> barrel, it would not be allowed now I suspose but modern ginger beer
> never tastes quite good enough, any sheddi recipes please
>
> kate

 Ginger Beer Plant

Put half an ounce of brewers yeast, one teaspoon of sugar and one teaspoon
of ground ginger, place into a jamjar with one cup of cold water.

Feed for seven days, giving it one teaspoon each of sugar and ground ginger.

Then, place the juice of four lemons in a bowl, add three cups of suger and
four cups of boiling water, stir well until the sugar is disolved.

Strain the Ginger beer plant through muslin or similar into the bowl and
stir.

Pour into plastic pop bottles and leave to stand for two hours before
screwing the tops on.  Then store somewhere where no damage will occur if
the bottles burst.

Also be vewy, vewy careful when opening a bottle.

Split the sediment left after straining into two equal parts, put one back
in the jar with a cup of cold water, this is your plant for next week.  The
other half can be given to a fiend or thrown away.

HTH

The message <2m49v8Fie9g5U1@uni-berlin.de>
from "Jamie Hart" <theodorebronson@hotmail.com> contains these words:

> Put half an ounce of brewers yeast, one teaspoon of sugar and one teaspoon
> of ground ginger, place into a jamjar with one cup of cold water.

There was an article in New Scientist a while ago about ginger beer
yeast culture - apparently the very best gb comes from a hybrid compound
culture of different strains of yeast. Ordinary brewers' or bakers'
yeasts don't cut the mustard. Perhaps someone with a subscription could
search for it.

--
Being superstitious brings bad luck

Guy King wrote:
> The message <2m49v8Fie9g5U1@uni-berlin.de>
> from "Jamie Hart" <theodorebronson@hotmail.com> contains these words:
>
>> Put half an ounce of brewers yeast, one teaspoon of sugar and one
>> teaspoon of ground ginger, place into a jamjar with one cup of cold
>> water.
>
> There was an article in New Scientist a while ago about ginger beer
> yeast culture - apparently the very best gb comes from a hybrid
> compound culture of different strains of yeast. Ordinary brewers' or
> bakers' yeasts don't cut the mustard. Perhaps someone with a
> subscription could search for it.

This is the reason that you get better gb from old established plants.  The
yeast strains will evolve, the better ones surviving as others die off.

Occasionally though, this can cause a plant to go bad, adding off flavours.

On Tue, 20 Jul 2004 14:55:27 +0100, Guy King wrote:

> There was an article in New Scientist a while ago about ginger beer
> yeast culture - apparently the very best gb comes from a hybrid compound
> culture of different strains of yeast. Ordinary brewers' or bakers'
> yeasts don't cut the mustard. Perhaps someone with a subscription could
> search for it.


Marriage of equals

New Scientist vol 175 issue 2362 - 28 September 2002, page 50


Summer was once the time to quaff ginger beer, served up in brown stone
bottles. All over the British Isles people relished its frothy, fizzy
gingery tang, enhanced by an alcohol content that temperance campaigners
warned could rival that of strong London stout. Best of all it was
virtually free: you could make it at home with just a bit of sugar,
ginger, water and a ginger-beer "plant".

No wonder, then, that this plant was a family heirloom, passed from mother
to daughter and father to son. But it wasn't your typical green, leafy
kind of plant. This was a sloppy mess of whitish, gelatinous lumps that
typically lived in a jam jar. Exactly what this stuff was, nobody had a
clue. It worked, and that was enough.

But in 1887, a 33-year-old botanist called Harry Marshall Ward became
curious. When a famous friend at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, London,
gave him a specimen, he was hooked. Unwittingly, he had embarked on a
Herculean labour. "Had I known how long and difficult a task I had set
myself," he later remarked, "the attempt would possibly have been
abandoned at an early date."

EVERYONE knew that Harry Ward could never resist a challenge. On a visit
to his old mentor, the director of Kew Gardens, Ward couldn't help but
notice the bottle of ginger-beer plant, perched on a shelf in the
director's study. "There is a thing you have to worry out," suggested
William Thistleton Dyer, knowing all too well of Ward's penchant for
botanical mysteries.

From now on Ward devoted every hour he could snatch from his job -
teaching young men about to enter the Indian Forest Service - to his hunt
for the mysterious agent that transformed sweet, gingery water into a
tasty and potent pint.

Ward had always been passionate about botany. While attending the
revolutionary courses run by Darwin's champion, Thomas Henry Huxley, he
had famously fainted at his microscope from sheer over-excitement. After
his time with Huxley in London, Ward won a place to read natural sciences
at Cambridge, and blossomed.

He went on to become a brilliant exponent of the "new botany". Radical
ideas were spreading from mainland Europe, and he and his friends wanted
to learn about how plants worked, not just how they were classified. He
went on to become one of the great names of the day. Before he died aged
just 52, reputedly of overwork, he pioneered the study of both symbiosis
and pathology, investigating how plants and microorganisms live together
as friend as well as foe.

Ward's first major study, as botanist to the colonial government of
Ceylon, is now a classic of plant pathology. In 1879, the coffee
plantations of Ceylon were threatened with extinction by a leaf disease.
The disease was coffee rust, and for the next two years Ward worked out
the life cycle of the rust fungus and showed how leaving belts of natural
forest between the coffee plantations could prevent the spread of its
spores. This was a brilliant piece of scientific detection, but it came
too late. As the epidemic wiped out vast monocultures of coffee across the
British colonies, the "mother country" quietly returned to drinking tea.

And ginger beer of course. Back in England and inspired by the "plant"
from Kew, Ward set out to amass a comprehensive collection of specimens.
Soon his laboratory shelves were crowded with jars of ginger-beer plants
from all over the country, and even from North America.

To this day, no one has ever worked out where the first ginger-beer plants
came from. Rumour had it that soldiers had returned from the Crimean War
with the stuff, but Ward said that was sheer speculation. "The whole
question as to whence it was first derived, in fact, is enshrouded in
mystery," he concluded. But he did solve the ultimate mystery, that of the
plant's real nature. His meticulous analyses revealed it to be a
fascinating alliance of cooperating microorganisms.

Everything turned on his scrupulous technique. Over the years, he had
established nearly 2000 separate cultures, some of which he had to keep
going for months or even years, as he struggled to separate and cultivate
each microorganism in a pure state.

To avoid contamination, he first ensured that every flask, beaker tube,
funnel, watch glass and microscope slide was absolutely sterile. All
apparatus was baked or boiled for several hours. Next, he concocted an
extensive menu of nutrient broths to cater for every taste. The fussiest
fungi dined on best bouillon made from lean beefsteak, finely chopped and
soaked overnight in distilled water, then filtered and boiled.

Even then, some microorganisms failed to thrive or resisted purification,
and for these cases Ward perfected a way of isolating a single yeast cell
in a "hanging drop" secured to a microscope slide, thus guaranteeing the
culture's purity while he tracked down its identity.

His diligence paid off, for when he published his results in 1892 in the
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, no one questioned his
astonishing announcement. Buried in this scholarly text is a biological
bombshell. The ginger-beer plant, Ward proclaimed, was a new kind of
organism - a "composite body", consisting of dozens of microorganisms
living amicably together in a symbiotic lump. Not all of these microbes
helped in making the beer. The majority Ward regarded as opportunistic
interlopers. They turned up by chance, and hung around for the free lunch.

But two organisms were present in every plant sampled, and seemed to be
vital to the production of ginger beer. One was a fungus, a new species of
yeast he called Saccharomyces pyriformis. The other was a bacterium, which
he named Bacterium vermiforme, and is now called Brevibacterium
vermiforme.

Ward reckoned that these two microbes had developed a symbiotic
relationship, to their mutual benefit. He couldn't be sure of the
biochemical details, but he guessed that the bacterium consumed the
yeast's waste products, while the yeast benefited from their removal.
Together, the two produced the essential ingredients of traditional ginger
beer: carbon dioxide and alcohol.

The conclusive proof came when Ward made perfect ginger beer in his
laboratory, using his own plant, reconstituted from his pure cultures of
the right yeast and bacterium.

So the ginger-beer plant was a bona fide "dual organism", rather like
lichens. Everything pointed to a true symbiosis. For instance, when Ward
tried to feed the bacteria with dead or feeble yeast cells, the
experiments failed. The plant emerged only from a marriage of equals,
which needed time: it took several days for the partners to find and
embrace one another. No one could have predicted that the crude home brew
of country folk would reveal a phenomenon new to science - what Ward
called "symbiotic fermentation".

It was landmark research. Yet as the study of symbiosis fell out of
fashion, Ward's work sank into obscurity. Vindication of a sort came half
a century later, when a research team decided to investigate kefir. Ward
had also been interested in this yogurt-like drink, made from fermented
milk, and popular in the Caucasus mountains of southern Russia and
Georgia, and he had begun to investigate its secrets.

Legend has it that the Prophet Muhammad first gave kefir curds to
Christians living near Mount Elbrus with strict instructions never to give
them away. All the same, kefir curds did eventually turn up in a
laboratory where, just as Ward had predicted, investigators identified a
symbiotic collaboration between yeast and bacteria.

Years after Ward's pioneering work, Soviet researchers discovered a
further instance of symbiotic fermentation. A yeast and a bacterium
apparently cooperate to form the "tea fungus" or kambucha that thrives on
sweetened tea. After a few days, the liquid acquires a pleasant acidity
and a peculiar fruity taste that eastern Europeans once regarded as ideal
for gastric upsets.

Indeed, not so long ago, even ordinary bread owed its distinctive taste
and consistency to microbial liaisons. The traditional baker's yeast or
"barm" passed from baker to baker was found in the 1950s to consist not
only of the conventional baker's yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae but at
least one other yeast, as well as one or more bacterial species. By
cooperating, this microbial syndicate fermented a greater number of
carbohydrates than any of the various microbial components alone. The
bread that resulted was surely like nothing you can buy today.

Today's commercial ginger beer is also much altered, purged of both its
alcohol and its symbiotic liaisons. It is possible that Ward's own
lovingly reconstituted ginger-beer plant survived into the 1940s. Max
Walters, now 82, says he made and drank the stuff in the Botany School at
Cambridge just after the Second World War. But no one knows what happened
to it after that.

Gail Vines

--
http://www.buddhas.org is currently tqt- back soon.
    [- ancipital attt hotmail dott cohm -]
"I'm not crying victim, but I am stating that a lot
of spammers are genuine scumbags." -Sanford Wallace

The message <pan.2004.07.20.15.37.22.475094@hotmail.com>
from Ancipital <WARKancipitalWARK@hotmail.com> contains these words:

> Today's commercial ginger beer is also much altered, purged of both its
> alcohol and its symbiotic liaisons. It is possible that Ward's own
> lovingly reconstituted ginger-beer plant survived into the 1940s. Max
> Walters, now 82, says he made and drank the stuff in the Botany School at
> Cambridge just after the Second World War. But no one knows what happened
> to it after that.

Sounds like a shedquest - track down a living culture and (CIA and
Homeland Security[1]) willing spread it around.

[1] Though why the hell us Brits should have to look over our shoulders
for some other country's security forces I'm far from sure.

--
Being superstitious brings bad luck

The message <313030303432373940FD4F1631@zetnet.co.uk>
from Guy King <guy.king@zetnet.co.uk> contains these words:
> The message <pan.2004.07.20.15.37.22.475094@hotmail.com>
> from Ancipital <WARKancipitalWARK@hotmail.com> contains these words:

> > Today's commercial ginger beer is also much altered, purged of both its
> > alcohol and its symbiotic liaisons. It is possible that Ward's own
> > lovingly reconstituted ginger-beer plant survived into the 1940s. Max
> > Walters, now 82, says he made and drank the stuff in the Botany School at
> > Cambridge just after the Second World War. But no one knows what happened
> > to it after that.

> Sounds like a shedquest - track down a living culture and (CIA and
> Homeland Security[1]) willing spread it around.

> [1] Though why the hell us Brits should have to look over our shoulders
> for some other country's security forces I'm far from sure.

I goove I molished some by accident: the ginger beer began to get
cloudy, and eventually became a milky gloop like thin snot. I has a
bockle of it if anybody wishes to play with some.

--
Rusty
Open the creaking gate to make a horrid.squeak, then lower the foobar.
http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/

On Tue, 20 Jul 2004 21:26:05 +0100, Jaques d'Alltrades wrote:

> I goove I molished some by accident: the ginger beer began to get
> cloudy, and eventually became a milky gloop like thin snot. I has a
> bockle of it if anybody wishes to play with some.

My, that sounds appealing, you should offer your descriptive services to
ArTony, for the Ministry of Burying Bad News.

--
http://www.buddhas.org is currently tqt- back soon.
    [- ancipital attt hotmail dott cohm -]
"I'm not crying victim, but I am stating that a lot
of spammers are genuine scumbags." -Sanford Wallace

In article <pan.2004.07.21.08.52.55.789078@hotmail.com>, Ancipital wrote:
> On Tue, 20 Jul 2004 21:26:05 +0100, Jaques d'Alltrades wrote:
>
>> I goove I molished some by accident: the ginger beer began to get
>> cloudy, and eventually became a milky gloop like thin snot. I has a
>> bockle of it if anybody wishes to play with some.
>
> My, that sounds appealing, you should offer your descriptive services to
> ArTony, for the Ministry of Burying Bad News.

Nah. Not enough comma-separated adjectives.

--
Richard Robinson

"My species has a great many good reasons for making war, though none of
them is as good as the reason for not making war" - Ursula le Guin

Well thanks everone that was a great thread, I`m going to have a go at
making some :-) If its a success I will hitch the pony up to a flat cart
and see if I can make some money selling it but I suspose the min.of
health or Defra would stop me :-)

kate

Kate Morgan wrote:

> Well thanks everone that was a great thread, I`m going to have a go at
> making some :-) If its a success I will hitch the pony up to a flat cart
> and see if I can make some money selling it but I suspose the min.of
> health or Defra would stop me :-)

Nah.  Just dress as a Romany.  They can do whatever they want, it seems.

On Wed, 21 Jul 2004, Kate Morgan wrote:

>Well thanks everone that was a great thread, I`m going to have a go at
>making some :-) If its a success I will hitch the pony up to a flat cart
>and see if I can make some money selling it but I suspose the min.of
>health or Defra would stop me :-)

To buy some? I know I would.

When I get an ouse lager nuff I'll be doing stuff like that.
Might even try an claim back my beer molishing kit from the garage of
the house my fiend hasn't lived in for 5 years... Wonder if it's still there?

kt.

--
So I rang up a local building firm,
I said 'I want a skip outside my house.'
He said 'I'm not stopping you.'