home made ginger ale

[smilingcat]

peeled and shredded about 60g (2oz) of fresh ginger. Put that into a small pot.
add about 60g of sugar.
add about cup of water and brought to a simmer for about an hour with the lid on. I wanted a very strong biting ginger ale that isn't sweet. No sirreee! I want a ginger ale to make your toe nails curl.

Let it cool to room temperature. Added about 2TBS of lemon juice and zest of half a lemon.
Poured the concoction into a sterilized qt bottle with a cap that can seal. Added enough water to fill most of the bottle and left about 3 inches of head room. Add 1/8tsp of bakers yeast since I didn't have real brewer's yeast culture. Capped the bottle and left it in my shower inside a plastic bucket in case it decide to turn into a geyser.

Geyser didn't happen. Chilled and when I started to crack open it fizzed quite a bit. Oh good I thought. Good carbonation.

Poured the elixier into my cup tasted it. And it WAS FLAT!! So what happened. The drink does have a bite. I think it needs more lemon juice the next time. Sugar content was just right.

Has anyone made home brew root beer, or ginger ale? And if so what did I do wrong for the drink to have gone flat?

[shootingstar]

You're very enterprising at least to try, smilingcat to go this far.

[alexis_the_tiny]

Can you just bottle the syrup and mix it in with soda water?? I love your recipe for the syrup, btw, am gonna make it. Can't brew it here tho, it's so hot I'd probably have one heck of a geyser.

[KnottedYet]

I've only brewed beer, and it took weeks for the stuff to become carbonated.

[OakLeaf]

No idea ...

but here I am on the other side of the hummus thread.* Reed's Extra has 28 g fresh ginger root per 12 oz (355 ml) bottle.

Homemade sounds delicious! but you don't have to make it if the only reason you're doing it is a stronger flavor. It is sweeter though, with 37.4g sugars per bottle.

*At least Reed's comes in recyclable glass bottles.

[Owlie]

Maybe the yeast was old?

Knot, you need to keep the "fermentation" relatively short or you'll end up with alcoholic ginger ale!

I'm going to have to try Reed's ginger ale. I love their root beer and cream soda...

[aquamoose32]

wow fun! I'm gonna try. I brew kombucha and like that carbonation too. My understanding of Carbonation is that something eats the sugar and releases CO2 and thats how you get it fizzy. However, I've made batches of kombucha every two weeks for a year now and sometimes it is fizzy sometimes it is not. I give it about a week to work its bubble magic once I cap the bottles. Maybe it had to do with bakers yeast and not brewers yeast? I am beginning to wonder now if it has something to do with the amounts of sugar per kombucha culture. Maybe you didnt have enough sugar to naturally make it as bubbly as you wanted? Dont have an answer, but I'll let you know how my batch turns out. Have you tried root beer?