A coworker gave me a 2-litre bottle. I have a hand of ginger. I have water. I can get active dry yeast and a lemon. According to an episode of Good Eats, that’s all I need to make ginger beer. But several online recipes I’ve looked at call for cream of tartar. Do I really need cream of tartar? What’s it do?
Also: Alton Brown’s recipe calls for 1.5 oz. of grated ginger (per 6 oz. sugar and seven cups water). I like my ginger beer ‘hot’. How much ginger should I use?
I have made ginger ale (not beer. Not sure of the difference, honestly) with this recipe several times. It usually comes out about right.
I have experimented a bit with it as well, substituting demerara sugar, and also making sodas from various other fruits (my cherry soda came out well.)
I usually make it spicier by using craploads of ginger. 
But it still never seems to come out as strong as I want.
Hmmm…maybe I wasn’t very much help with this.
Ginger beer recipes in this thread: What to do with a sack full of ginger root? - Cafe Society - Straight Dope Message Board
I believe the cream of tartar is used for a yeast nutrient. Most people I know who make ginger beer use raisins, which also act as indicators of completion.
If you have access to ale yeast, even the dry stuff, it makes a better brew than the typical baker’s.
Is there some reason you can’t get cream of tartar? It’s cheap and ubiquitous in grocery stores.
I’m sure I can get it at the supermarket. It’s just that Brown’s recipe doesn’t call for it and other recipes do; so I was curious as to why it’s needed.
Oh, my mistake. I thought you were afraid you wouldn’t be able to find it. I have a jar of the crap in my spice cabinet, but I can’t recall ever using it :p.
Six ounces of sugar, two ounces of freshly grated ginger root and juice (I finally used my new scale!) and 1/2 cup of water went into the pot. (First use of my new Calphalon cookset!) Brought it to a boil, took off the heat, covered, and now it’s sitting for another 45 minutes. I’ve got two tablespoons of lemon juice (one fresh lemon) ready to go. The bottle is washed, the funnel is washed, and I have yeast and cream of tartar standing by.
The online recipes call for 1/2 teaspoon of cream of tartar, and look like they usually make two gallons. I’m using seven cups of water, so I’ll use 1/8 tsp cream of tartar. (And 1/8 tsp yeast, BTW.)
Some unasked for advice, because I don’t remember Alton mentioning it: Leave the ginger beer on a surface that’s easy to clean. Because of the wild yeast inherent in all fresh ginger, the fermentation of ginger beer can sometimes be overwhelming.
I thought I’d put it in the deep sink. If I need to use the washing machine, I have a five-gallon bucket my former roommate left me in case I wanted to try making beer. 
I made Alton Brown’s ginger ale last week. It was OK. Each sip seemed a little mild (I am a ginger eating freak!), but after a glass, I had happy ginger mouth.
The negative was that it seemed to be lacking something. Did you try the syrup before you poured it into the bottle? Mine was wonderful. But somehow, the finished beverage seemed more like “bubbly water with ginger flavor” than it did “ginger beer”. I’m thinking that I might add the tiniest bit of salt next time, since most commercial soda has it and it might round out the flavor profile.
I tried just the barest taste. It was a bit sweet. I’m hoping the yeast will tone it down.
Interesting! That looks fun to try.
It says to use “cold fresh pure water”. How cold? How pure? Tap? Brita filtered? Distilled? Tap, boiled, then chilled?
AB says filtered water, but bottled water would be OK.
The water where I live is great. Cold too, especially this time of year. So I just used it out of the tap.
Johnny - just so you know - if it doesn’t work out there’s a place in Seattle where you can buy Blenheim’s hot ginger ale (I just picked up a 12 pack last week, to give to some of my friends).
I have been making a ginger beverage with orange and lime juice with a significantly higher juice to sugar water ratio but I have never thought to yeast/carbonate it. Is the alcohol content significant?
Where?
It’s non-alcoholic.
As in exploding bottles. Be careful!
The bottle has been sitting for about 14 hours. I’m not noticing any activity. I ‘dented’ the bottle to allow for expansion, and it’s still dented. I’m not sure if the small amount of white stuff I see around the edge of the surface is very small bubbles, or floating cream of tartar. I don’t see any obvious bubbles.
Typically if your tap water is clean enough to put in your fishtank, and tasty enough to drink, it’s ok to brew with.
Filtered is ok. I stay away from distilled, because the yeast needs the tiny amount of salt in the water to do its thing. If you boil your water, you will need to vigorously stir it afterwards to get some oxygen back into it. For the small amount of fermentation you need to carbonize ginger beer, the yeast is still in an aerobic state.
This is just what I do, I’m sure somebody will be along to fill in the technical details.