J. & D. Parson recipe adapted from these 2 recipes, but using a 3-stage approach with no plastic bottles. https://food52.com/blog/9927-how-to-make-alcoholic-ginger-beer-from-scratch http://www.chowhound.com/recipes/chow-ginger-beer-10683 We bought the yeast, the sanitizer, and the two 1-gallon fermenting jobs with water-sealed lids from here http://www.northernbrewer.com/ See http://www.northernbrewer.com/brewing/beer-equipment-starter-kits/one-gallon-small-batch-starter-kit http://www.northernbrewer.com/easy-clean We always use well water, and always rinse the Easy Clean sanitizer off before putting ingredients into it, despite the instructions to the contrary. Make a few successful batches of beer from kits or otherwise for practice. Cleanliness is very important. For making 2 gallons (32 cups) of wort. Bought about 1.5 lbs. of ginger for the Aug batch (which turned out excellent), 2 lbs. for the Oct. batch, fresh stuff at Farmer’s market. ********** START OF WEEK 1: 1. Aug 13, 2016 — 4 cups water, 4 teaspoons ginger, 4 teaspoons sugar, 1 Safale US-05 yeast 11.5 grams (1 packet ale yeast sold w. ginger beer kit). Oct 2, 2016, same deal, using LALVIN EC-1118 5 grams wine yeast instead, experiment. Oct 15 start a culture (3rd batch) using 1 Safale US-05 yeast 11.5 grams. Boil water, add ginger & sugar after boil, cool to 70-75 degree range, add yeast after cool to room temp. Add same amount of ginger & sugar (4 tsps. each) every day for a week, to culture the yeast, culturing in an open-top container with cheese cloth rubber-banded across the top. Leave room for yeast growth & bubbles to escape. On our second batch I am waiting until each day of use to peel/grate the ginger. ********** START OF WEEK 2: Boil 2 gallons (32 cups) of water, 3 cups sugar (make it good & sweet — it will become good & dry), 4 to 5 medium squeezed lemons’ juice (wash them & toss in the rinds), and remainder of the original 1.5 pound of ginger. This is the wort. Taste early in the boil & add ginger or sugar if you think it is needed. Boil for 30 minutes. Cool. Strain the yeast culture from WEEK 1 through cheese cloth, stir it up, & pour it alternately through a funnel into the 2 jugs. Alternating makes sure both jugs get same density of yeast. After wort is room temperature, strain through cheese cloth & pour it alternately through a funnel into the 2 jugs, to near the top. You can go fuller than the first week of a beer batch, because the yeast got its exponential growth with overflowing CO2 out of the way in week one. Seal jug with the water seal lids that allow CO2 bubbles to escape. These are “Screw Caps with Hole” in Northern Brewer. Put it somewhere dark & quiet in the 65 - 75 F degree range. During the first week (WEEK 2) there should be a steady stream of CO2 bubbles rising throughout. It will not push through the top like beer, because WEEK 1 took care of the initial yeast explosion. During second week (WEEK 3) bubbles taper off and yeast sediment sinks to the bottom. ********** START OF WEEK 4: Sterilize 10 bottles per gallon of wort, total 20 bottles in our case. Likewise sterilize bottle caps. Put sugar carbonation pill (“fizz tablet” == about 1/2 teaspoon of sugar) into each bottle. Pump each bottle from the clear part of the wort, avoiding yeast sludge in the bottom, to near top of bottle, leave a little room. Cap them & put in dark room 60 to 75 degrees F to at least 2 to 3 weeks. Chill & drink. Make mixed drinks. This has always been extremely dry for me; I did not like adding sugar for sweetness, prefer dry. Of course you can make Dark & Stormy or whatever mixed drink with this. I will update wherever this is posted if errors / clarifications come along.