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Yeah, Eoin eile, if it creates an excess I've no problem forwarding some on to you. We'll worry about the logistics later...

Spud, check here [url:2zrq9jyx]http://mistyhorizon2003.hubpages.com/hub/How-to-Grow-Your-Own-Ginger-Beer-Plant[/url:2zrq9jyx]

24 hours in and it's bubbling lightly.
Its going at a gentle pace (unlike the Wheat beer i put down last night)
No froth or anything, but it's alive for sure.

It is mesmerizing alright, like the many hours wasted staring at 'seamonkeys'
It's nothing like this [url:2zrq9jyx]http://www.retro-culture.com/gallery.html[/url:2zrq9jyx], more like a layer of wallpaper paster giving off bubbles...
My phone broke over the weekend so i have no way of taking a photo at the moment, but I'll sort something out later.

"EoinMag":1f4bga5e wrote: If you at any point decide you want to get rid of some of the plant when it starts to outgrow the vessels, I'd be more than happy to take some of your excess plant off of you.

I also have some Kefir culture there, although I'm not sure if it's still alive at this stage as it's sat in a jar unfed in the fridge for quite a while, but I could get more of it easy enough.[/quote:1f4bga5e]

I'd be interested also. How frequently do they tend to split?

"kenmc":1amk0z4o wrote:

"EoinMag":1amk0z4o wrote: If you at any point decide you want to get rid of some of the plant when it starts to outgrow the vessels, I'd be more than happy to take some of your excess plant off of you.

I also have some Kefir culture there, although I'm not sure if it's still alive at this stage as it's sat in a jar unfed in the fridge for quite a while, but I could get more of it easy enough.[/quote:1amk0z4o]

I'd be interested also. How frequently do they tend to split?[/quote:1amk0z4o]


Well it looks very similar to a Kefir scoby, so I'd imagine that each beer will increase the scoby volume by about 15-20%, which is about the rate of the Kefir culture.
When they get large they get much faster and more efficient at the turn around, no different to pitching a large amount of yeast.

I ended up ordering some GBP myself to give it a try. Bottled a 5 litre batch friday night and tasted a bottle last night. It was well carbonated and tasted pretty nice. As i was drinking it I was thinking to myself about how beer brewed with traditional brewer's yeast can contain no known human pathogens and wondered if the same applied to the GBP.
I thought no more about it until I heard today that my brother who I shared a bottle with was up all night vomiting. Coincidence or something to worry about?
I don't know enough about this kind of thing but wikipedia tells me that the yeast in GBP is saccharomyces florentinus and that it itself is a pathogen.

A lot of people are intolerant of yeast .

Enough to have made most Macro's go down the route of microfiltering rather than having to explain to people that it wasn't the beer making them ill
but the yeast .

He has drank my other homebrews before so I don't think it's from yeast, unless it's just this particular species of yeast which I imagine is possible. Then again it may not be from the ginger beer at all