Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

PLJ what markets were you set up at? Would love to swing by one day.


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You could always throw some watercress on your pizza right at the end, allowing enough time for it to wilt, then wash your pizza down with turmeric beer. Did I mention that I produce turmeric beer?

G'day Liney, I operate my stall (rather sporadically) at the Mt Claremont Farmers Market. I'll PM you to let you know when I'll next be there, once I know myself.

Watercress on pizza sounds a winner, I'll let you know on that one goes.

Turmeric Beer sounds interesting, I've got a batch of Turmeric that I will pull out of the barrels serperate come Spring, and I've brewed beer, stout and alcoholic ginger beer for many years so I'll look for Turmeric recipes online and give that a try.

If it's anything like the ginger beer it will be a winner.

Joblow, my ginger beer has (nearly) always been a winner. These days I produce it with fresh, home-grown ginger rather than the dried, ground ginger (which worked perfectly well). Similarly, the turmeric beer is produced with fresh, home-grown Thai white turmeric.

It didn't occur to me to look up a recipe for turmeric beer. I'd never heard of it being made so just adapted the ginger beer process. I plan to sell it at my market stall, assuming I'm able to jump through the obligatory legislative hoops.

My ginger beer has also been great and over the years I tried taking the alcoholic content up as high as I could get it before it started to alter the taste.

On a hot day I could clean up 3 x 750ml bottle before it kicked in, and when it did you didn't need any more.

I have some Thai ginger growing, I don't know if it's anything like your Thai white turmeric or not but it might be worth trying.

PLJ best of luck with your sales and I hope you can overcome the legislative hoops without too much trouble.

Joblow, we may have to swap notes on our respective experiences with brewed 'soft' drinks. Thanks for your wishes of luck.
Do you have a scientific name for your Thai ginger? I'm wondering if you have galangal (Alpinia galanga) or finger root, Chinese keys (Boesenbergia rotunda), both of which are sometimes referred to as Thai ginger?

Hi PLJ,

My brewed 'soft' drinks, so far have only been brewed from store bought home brew ginger beer kits, the brand that I loved I have not been able to find for years now so I switched to Brigalow. The Brigalow doesn't have the real "Stone Jar Ginger Beer" flavour that I remember drinking as a kid but it's as close I can find.

I add 600g fresh ground ginger, 6 x small Thai chillis and 1.5kg raw sugar. The ground ginger and chilli have only been added to the last couple of brews and I'm still tinkering with the recipe and trying different things, but the sugar is now at the correct level, any more and it starts to get a bit bitter.

I think with 1.5kgs of raw sugar the alcoholic content is around 5%.

https://www.bigw.com.au/product/brigalo ... g/p/19273/

PLJ the Thai ginger I have growing is a Galangal Plant (Thai Ginger) – Alpinia galangal, any advise on a recipe for that would be greatly appreciated.

I found a few recipes for Turmeric online, I'm not sure which would be the better to brew with, the Turmeric of the Thai ginger?

Joblow, our brewing has taken us down different but parallel paths. I've never used a brewing kit but have produced the so-called ginger beer 'plant' from scratch. My ginger beer plant isn't the famous and traditional GBP made from a particular yeast (Saccharomyces pyriformis, meaning pear shaped sugar fungus) and a bacterium (Brevibacterium vermiforme, meaning short bacteria shaped like a worm) which together form a jelly-like cluster. The yeast for my ginger beer comes from the sultanas that I include in the original mixture, which is left to ferment for a few days before daily feeding of sugar and ginger commences.

As far as galangal is concerned, I've cooked with it a couple of times and really appreciated its flavour but have done no more with it. I don't grow it on the scale that I produce my various gingers and turmerics. It would be worth trying in a brewed beer, I reckon. Galangal seems to be the only member of the ginger family that holds its leaves through winter where I live.

Thanks for the tip regarding the use of chilli in the fermentation process. I've included a small, hot one in one of my current ginger beer plants and am looking forward to tasting for the extra heat when it's bottled and ready.

PLJ, back in my 20's I brewed ginger beer using sultanas and daily feeding the sugar to ferment it, but haven't brewed any ginger beer that way for more than 20 years, I've found the brew kits to be a lot easier to brew and not far off the mark for taste & flavour.

In my 20's I also brewed beer by boiling the hops and fermenting it in a plastic rubbish bin. I lost a lot of the beer through bottles exploding, it had to be bottled at the right time after it had finished fermenting or you lost a few bottles. Those days are all gone now with the brew kits. My brother is setting up to brew in kegs, I'll see how he goes and I might do the same. It's back to basic with that, no brew kits, I think the ingredients would all be like a brew kit, no boiling hops involved, and with the gas you should get a nice beer.

My Galangal hasn't lost it's leaves but they're not looking all that good, the Ginger and the Turmeric leaves are all well gone, we have had a very cold winter here. It also killed off a few of my Chili plants, it's been pretty cold here.

PLJ it depends on how hot your Chili is that determines the taste, don't go putting any Carolina Reaper or Trinidad Scorpion in there.

I plant Carolina Reaper and Trinidad Scorpion and a few others in wicking pots every year, I don't know why because I can't eat them they are way too hot for me. The young bloke likes all the hot stuff here, but the "Real Chillis" fix him up, he trys one or two every year but they sort him out, I think that must be why I grow them.

Your discussion on ginger beer has taken me back to the days when I was a little kid and my grandmother used to brew the family ginger beer. It used to be in a huge glass bottle and when you got a glass it was filled with all kinds of floatie things including saltanas. It was out of this world. I think I might need to get in touch with my mom to see if she has the recipe!

PLJ thanks for the info on the nutritious veggies. I have passed it on to my better half she is really into that kind of information and I can tell you it is only a matter of time until she produces something that includes watercress. It will also help me out in the long run as I am changing my diet and on a fitness jaunt. Had a foot injury and couldn't do anything for about 4 months but ate the same amount of food. So now I am unfit and have a more kilos to shed than I expected!

Joblow, my chillies don't have names, that I know of. I'll taste test the GB batch that has a chilly in it tmrw night.

Martin, I'm pleased that the link I posted proved useful to you. Good luck with your weight-shedding!

Back to aquaponics; I lost nine trout over the weekend while I was away doing my bit for queen and country. I've hooked up some large airstones to a blower, which I would normally have done before this stage of the season. Previously, I've had the blower switch on via a timer, around dusk, in unison with a bug zapper with both running until dawn. I figure that the extra algae that colonises the tank as the days get brighter draw sufficient dissolved oxygen at night to warrant additional aeration. I think that with my otherwise unexplained fish deaths I've inadvertently proved my theory.

Bugger losing that amount of fish, whats your water temp getting up to?

I'm now keeping the lid down over my FT (IBC) ajar slightly to block out the vast amount of light, outside is wrapped in corro, hopefully that'll keep the algae right down. Water temps are still in 11-14C but then our air temps are still around 10-15C night/day. There are a couple of low 20's forecast for the next 2 weeks or so, still low/mid teens overnight.

I have an airpump ready as the water temp starts to rise, just need to get a few airstones. I'm hoping that the spraybar I have will provide sufficient aeration but a little more can't hurt I suppose.

Hopefully your additional aeration will prevent any further deaths prior to their planned dispatch!

Thanks PLJ. I started the 5-2 last week. That's 5 days eating normally and 2 days of fasting. Fasting is limited calorie intake with a max of 800 calories on a fasting day. I have to be honest I can already feel a difference. It is also changing my outlook on eating and how much I eat. Somehow I am getting used to being hungry. I was always very worried about it and at the first hint of hunger (mainly at work) would either whip out some snacks I had on me or I would be off to the dairy downstairs to get a snack. On fast days I can't do that so it is changing how I approach food on non-fast days. Suddenly feeling hungry isn't such a big deal and I can finish what I am doing or even put it off for a few hours. Anyway that's my story and I'm sticking to it!

It's still early days but I am feeling good about it.

I fear I may have over-planted my turnips.