Cream of tartar is one important ingredient that many people in recipes use. It is also called potassium bitartrate. It is the powdered form of tartaric acid. Cream of tartar is an organic acid found naturally in many plants and fruits such as bananas, citrus, and grapes. It also formed during the winemaking process. Potassium bitartrate crystallizes in wine casks during the fermentation process, and the crystals are filtered out or gathered to make a cream of tartar. Cream of tartar is used in stabilizing whipped egg whites, prevents sugar from crystallizing, and acts as a leavening agent for baked goods.
Cream of tartar is also used to stabilize the acid level in ginger beer.
What does cream of tartar do?
Below are several things cream of tartar can do.
- It serves as a leavening agent in baking. You can substitute your yeast with a cream of tartar when making bread. To use it is mix it with baking soda to produce a gas. The small air bubbles that occur when these ingredients reach a hot temperature are carbon dioxide gas. It will result in the dough. Using cream of tartar helps you make the fluffiest and softest cookie recipes, cakes, and bread. Baking powder is a combination of baking soda and cream of tartar.
- Cream of tartar can also be used to stabilize egg whites. It enables egg whites to maintain their high peaks even in hot oven temperatures. Cre of tartar increases the creation of foam and helps to stabilize the structure of those minuscule air bubbles you are whipping up.
- You can also use cream of tartar for making creamier frostings, icings, or syrups. If you use a cream of tartar in your frosting recipe, it will stop the creation of sugar crystals. It gives you the perfect-textured frostings and icings, and it also creates syrups that lack crunchy sugar capsules.
- It can also serve as a cleaning agent. All you need to do is mix cream of tartar with a little water to clean stainless steel appliances.
- If you add a pinch of cream of tartar to boiling vegetables, it will help them retain their bright, fresh color.
- Adding a pinch of cream of tartar also helps to stabilize whipped cream to hinder it from deflating.
When should I use cream of tartar?
You should add cream of tartar to a recipe when the sugar is heated. If you don’t heat it, you won’t get many inversions. And it means you are just adding an acid to your recipe, and a weak one at that. Also, stick to the guidelines given by the producers on how best to use your cream of tartar.
Why do we need cream of tartar for the ginger beer process?
It would be best if you had a cream of tartar during the process of making your ginger beer, so it will help to stabilize the acid level in the ginger beer. It would be best if you also had cream of tartar in your ginger beer for head retention. The ingredients in bringer beer are not that acidic; that is why most brewers love to use cream of tartar to make the ginger beer a bit acidic.
When table sugar (sucrose) is heated in the presence of an acid, it will hydrolyze to its constituents which are glucose and fructose. Cream of tartar is used solely because it lacks a strong flavor like other readily available acids such as citric acid.
Most times, an inverted sugar solution is very important for certain reasons, like it is sweeter and it works better than a sucrose solution.
When it comes to sweetness, fructose is the highest in it, followed by sucrose, while glucose is third. That means an inverted sugar solution is sweeter than a sucrose solution. So, when you are adding cream of tartar to a recipe, it requires that you add it as the sugar is heated because if you don’t, you won’t get as much inversion that is needed. If you don’t add it to a heated sugar, it will just add a weak acid to your recipe.
How to make homemade ginger beer using the cream of tartar
The ingredients you will need for this are cream of tartar, freshly grated ginger, lemon juice, baker’s yeast, and water.
This is the easy version of making fermented homemade ginger beer. The original version will require you to use a “ginger bug” or “ginger starter,” ginger that has been fermented in sugar and water to the extent that its natural enzymes and probiotics are released.
The procedures involved are:
- Peel your ginger and grate it when it is fresh in a box grater. You will need about 1/4 cup of grated ginger.
- Pour your cream of tartar (1/2 teaspoon), lemon juice (1/4 cup), and grated ginger into a big pot.
- Pour four cups of water into the mixture and boil it.
- Reduce the heat down to medium, add your sugar and stir it until all of the sugar is dissolved.
- Pour about five cups of cold water into the pot and allow it to cool to around 75 degrees Fahrenheit (23 degrees Celsius). Add one teaspoon of yeast before stirring it very well.
- Close the pot with a kitchen towel and keep it in a warm, dark place in your house for about 3 hours. The mixture should have a yeasty and gingery aroma.
- Make use of a fine strainer, strain the liquid into a large pitcher to get rid of all the particles of ginger.
- Pour the brew into a clean 2-liter plastic bottle. Avoid filling up the bottles completely because the fermentation will yield carbon dioxide.
- Keep the bottles in the dark, warm room for about two to three days. Learn to carefully loosen the caps once or three times daily to relieve some of the pressure without opening the bottles completely.
It would be best if you were very careful when handling this, so you don’t end up exploding your bottles. After the fermentation process of this beer, you can choose to add fruit, simple syrup, juice, or liquor to it, or you can drink it as it is. If you decide to bottle your ginger beer in glass bottles, let it lose a lot of its fizz before it is bottled, so it will continue to carbonate in the bottles because if you don’t, it could make your bottles explode due to so much pressure.
Conclusion
Cream of tartar is a very vital ingredient that is used in making ginger beer. It helps in balancing the acid level in ginger beer and also for head retention.
Cream of tartar is used in many recipes, and it can also serve as a cleaning agent. Ensure you use it properly so you can get the best out of it.