Results of an experiment with fermentation: A tasty summer drink

When I get home tonight I am going to be particularly happy about opening a bottle of my homemade lemonade ginger beer. It's been "smoothing out" in my fridge for a few days and I anticipate it will be a refreshing way to kick back in this crazy heat.

I sought out this beer (it's more like a wine cooler) recipe after watching an episode of the River Cottage show. Celebrity chef, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, is not your typical high drama American reality TV chef. He's a low-key British guy experimenting in modern-day rural sustainable living, and cooking. My kids are always fascinated by his simple cooking techniques and his Dorset cottage happenings. When Hugh is on, everyone is glued to the computer screen (we watch whatever BBC episodes we can find online). He's a interesting guy with some really great, practical ideas about cooking with simple ingredients.

In the show Hugh made lemonade ginger beer using 2-liter plastic bottles. The demonstration highlighted that it only took two days to ferment into a nice carbonated, alcoholic drink. I thought, yes, I can do this!

The trick was I had the fresh lemons and ginger but I didn't have brewer's yeast in my pantry. I did some research online and it looked like people had some success with substituting nutritional yeast for brewer's.

I'll confirm now that the substitution did not work out well.

Then my husband two bright ideas with adding items we had on-hand. One was to try a vitamin tablet of brewer's yeast and the other was to try some "champagne" yeast we had in our fridge (which was a few years old - a throwback to a notion of making our own wine... something we have yet to do).

One bottle got a vitamin tablet and that turned out to be ineffective in carbonating the drink. But, it did taste like a nice spiced lemonade. The kids liked it.

The other bottle got the champagne yeast and that was a resounding success. It had an alcohol kick that sneaks up on you and was oh so tasty.

Our version of this recipe tastes like a light, effervescent wine cooler (the actual fermented version is not shared with the kids). But you have to like the strong flavor of fresh ginger to really appreciate this drink.

I always qualify my gift of a bottle of this drink with the comment, "It's weird." But it's weird in a surprising, but likable way. A couple of friends have asked for another bottle so I think it passes muster with ginger fans and those with an adventurous palate.

GINGER LEMONADE "BEER"
¼ tsp champagne yeast (we bought ours at Oakhill Beverage in Scarborough)
1 cup of white sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons of finely grated fresh root ginger
Juice of 1 lemon
1 tablespoon of honey (don't add more than this because it could inhibit the fermentation process)
1 well-washed 2-liter bottle
   
First, add the yeast to the plastic bottle (do not use glass because it could explode - and not in a good way!). With a funnel, pour in the sugar.

Mix the grated ginger with the lemon juice and honey.

Pour the ginger mixture through the funnel into the bottle.

Fill the bottle about ¾ full with water.

Put the cap on and shake the bottle until all the sugar is dissolved.

Top up the bottle with water, leaving a gap at the top to allow for gas. Cap the bottle tightly, then place it somewhere warm.

Leave the bottle for about 48 hours. Once the bottle feels very hard and has no give in it, your drink should be ready.

Place the bottle in the fridge for several hours to stop the yeast working. Once the beer is thoroughly chilled, pass it through a fine sieve and serve. Or, bottle it in to glass bottles and be sure to always keep those bottles in the fridge.

Enjoy!

Food dyes are questionable after kid's craft project

My daughter is really into fiber. She has her own sheep and spins their fleece into yarn. A friend suggested she try dyeing her white roving with a packet of Kool-Aid because it offers some great, permanent color.

And she did get some nice coloring with Lemon & Lime, Cherry and Orange Kool-Aid.

The wool absorbed all the color after 30 minutes of soaking and left only clear water in the pan. It was remarkable... and gave me pause about what these dyes are sticking to inside our bodies.

I think many parents know food dyes are not good for their kids. But that generally doesn't prevent many (including me) from buying products with food dyes simply for convenience or because our kids beg us for a particular item marketed to appeal to them.

The FDA has a whole section on its website about food dyes, and how companies apply to the FDA  to use them in food products. It's actually quite interesting to read how food dyes are regulated. There is a study of "Low" "Concern Level" and "High" about what is approved within this governmental risk management assessment.

I don't put much stock in what the FDA believes is safe after my discovery a while back about this particular "natural flavoring" tidbit – Safety assessment of castoreum extract as a food ingredient.

If you follow that link you'll find that 'castoreum' is expressed from the anal gland of a beaver. It is legal, according to the FDA, to label this ingredient in food as a "natural flavor." It might be natural but it's not something I care to actually ingest.

So when the FDA offers information about a risk assessment of food dyes, I'm a little wary.

A couple of sources I found to learn more about food dyes includes:

The Center for Science in the Public Interest offers a roundup of information about food dyes.

Label Watch also offers some information about ingredients in foods that consumers should be wary about and make other product choices.

There is plenty of information about both sides of the food dye debate on the web so if you have a source you think is good, and credible, post a comment below to share it.

My reality is that there will be times when my kids and I are going to eat something with food dyes. My plan though is to ensure that it is as infrequent as possible because my daughter's wool dyeing project was an eye-opener. And we will still buy Kool-aid, we'll just store it in the craft closet.