About the Recipe
Adapted from a Maude Grieve’s recipe.
Ingredients
57g dried dandelion herb
57g dried nettle herbs
26g dried yellow dock root.
4L water (preferably filtered)
1kg sugar (your choice of)
2 tablespoons dried ginger powder
Yeast (champagne) – available from home brew suppliers.
Directions
Boil herbs in 4L of water for 15 minutes and strain the liquor while hot.
Add sugar (it must be a glucose containing sugar).
Sprinkle ginger powder on top and allow to cool to below 20 degrees C.
Pour into a 5L glass fermenting jar and top with cooled boiled water. Ensure there is sufficient space in the jar to allow for fermentation bubbling and frothing (both normal occurrences).
At this point it is imperative that the temperature of your brew be below 23.8 degrees C. Any higher than this and the yeast will die.
“Pitch” your yeast into the fermenter on top of the brew.
Place a rubber bung with an air lock, and put a little water in the air lock.
Allow to ferment for 4-5 days, you are looking for the bubbling through the air lock to stop and the froth in the fermenter to disperse.
Bottle into plastic bottles and leave for another 4-5 days to mature, (longer if you can manage it).
Check bottles regularly, if they become hard gently and slowly loosen the lids and allow pressure to escape.
Chill bottles and serve.
Nice with some crushed mint or lemon slices.