In our shed there’s a barrel for fermenting, an abundance of bottles, steriliser, an immersion heater. All the things a good home brewer needs. The beer brews in the fermenter for about a week, at this time of the year an immersion heater is vital, to keep the liquid at the correct temperature to keep the yeast alive. Once bubbles have stopped coming through the valve, we test it for it’s alcoholic content, then bottle with carbonation drops. After bottling, we wait for between 6 to 8 weeks for the brew to develop before we can drink it.
There is always some sediment left in the bottom of the barrel, this time though, I couldn’t bear to wash it out. The smell of ginger permeated the shed, and so I poured it into a bottle and set it aside.
I knew that it had to go into a loaf of bread. I’d been inspired by Celia’s (Fig Jam and Lime Cordial) Guinness and Treacle loaf, and thought I could do something similar. Ginger beer and honey it was, and as it was going to be a reasonably sweet loaf, fruit was added too. When feeding up Maggie in preparation for this loaf, we used equal cups liquid to bakers flour (166% hydration), this is where we used the ginger beer.
Do you ever find that you just can’t throw the left overs of something out?
- 300gm ripe Ginger beer sourdough starter (166% hydration)
- 650gm cold water
- 50gm honey
- 300gm mixed fruit and nuts (I used almonds, macadamia nuts, cranberries, raisins and dried apricots)
- 18gm salt
- 1000gm bakers flour
- Mix sourdough starter, water, honey, salt and fruit and nuts.
- Then add flour. Squelch until there are no dry bits.
- Cover until doubled in size.
- Split into two round loafs, “slash with panache” (making cuts into the top of the loaves).
- Bake at 220 degrees Celsius for 20 mins and then turn oven down to 175 and cook for a further 20 mins.
Celia’s bread looked fantastic didn’t it! And so does yours! 😀
Celia’s breads are all such an inspiration! Mine was delicious!
I like the idea of making sourdough but it looks too technical. I’m happy to live vicariously through you & Celia!
Nancy, if you’d like some sourdough starter, I can post it to you! It’s wonderfully easy!
I’m actually back in Melbourne til July 15th but I think you may still be in Nepal then? I doubt it would survive in the post to Shanghai which is a shame. Thank you for the lovely offer though.
Nancy, we get back in on the 19th! What a shame! I usually dry the starter and post it, so it wouldn’t be an issue at all!
I’m back again at Christmas so I’ll let you know and maybe you can send it to Melbourne for me? It would be great to bring back and see what happens to it.
I’ll be more than happy to send some to Melbourne in December for you!
Yum!! Love that you brew your own beer too!! Awesome!!
I can’t wait to drink the ginger beer when we get home!
Clare, that looks fantastic, what a great job you’ve done! How did it taste? I’ll link to yours now, thanks for the shoutout! 🙂
Celia it was delicious. Not very gingery to taste but had a wonderful ginger smell!
What a clever way to use the sediment. I almost wish I could eat wheat when I see bread like this. Yum!
Suzanne, it was a great loaf and one that I’ll be trying again!
YUM!!!!
I wish I had the drive to bake….. you are inspiring me to get to it more often though! I’ll give you THAT! xx
I’ll send some sourdough starter your way! You should definitely give it a go!
Hi Clare. Could I halve this recipe and just use my normal sourdough starter?