An early childhood memory from Butterwell Farm ,was of hearing a series of loud explosions as one of the bottles of ginger beer my parents were making, exploding and setting off a chain reaction among the other bottles. In those days we only had glass bottles. I have never tried my hand at this before but, with the elderflower champagne and cordial season and nettle beer season now almost upon me, I thought I’d also give it a go. I am now working on my ginger bug plant as you can see below.
The interweb reviews are mixed. Quite a few folks follow the instructions but the plant fails to bubble. I started two days ago adding water to the bug mix sachet and 4 teaspooons of sugar and one of ginger. In theory, I add 2 teapsoons of sugar and one of ginger powder to the plant every day until next Tuesday when I will have a bubbling mix. The liquid is then added to three litres of water to make some ginger beer to store in platic bottles until ready and the sludge at the bottom is divided into two. I keep half to start the whole process again and fob the other half on a pal. So far I have two other “young mums” lined up but as a sort of reverse ponzi scheme, in theory, it would only be three or four months before every house in the village has its own plant.
Anyhow that is a problem for the future. Right now it is a question of whether the plant starts to bubble later this week as it says on the packet
