Documenting my attempt to live a full life
I know lengthy recipe posts can be a droll, but if you’ve never made your own fermented beverage, it is essential to know a little before you get started! This post is for the beginner and I hope you enjoy!
Before Co2 carbonation, the only drinks historically carbonated were beers and wines. This is because Co2 is a byproduct of fermentation, and when trapped inside the fermentation vessel, the beverage stays carbonated. It is entirely possible to replicate this process at home by making your own fermented and (mostly) non-alcoholic sodas. I say mostly because, much like vinegar, there are trace amounts of alcohol produced by the fermentation process, but the amount is minuscule compared to a traditional alcoholic drink.
In the modern era, we have commercialized yeast to make stable, consistently flavored beers and wines, but before commercialized yeast all drinks were made using wild yeasts, which can be captured by numerous methods. One method used to make homemade sodas is to make a ginger bug. This is made much like a sourdough starter for bread, except the base ingredients are water, ginger, and sugar. Daily, equal parts ginger and sugar are added to the ginger bug. Wild yeasts occur naturally on ginger and so ginger bugs are ready fairly quickly. After 7-14 days of feeding and nurturing your ginger bug with daily feedings of ginger and sugar, you’ll have a bubbly, gingery, alcoholic-smelling soda starter. This starter is then added to your soda base, bottled up, and left to ferment for a couple of days to ensure a nice fizzy drink.
I initially wanted to try fermenting my own sodas because I was curious, but along the way I have come to love the process for so many reasons. First, I feel a bit like a mad scientist brewing up interesting concoctions. Because the sodas are carbonated using fermentation (wild yeasts), they contain live active probiotics. The sodas typically use less sugar, which I prefer the taste of, but you are making this for yourself so you can use more or less to suite your tastes. The ingredients are real and very fresh, so unlike regular soda, there is some nutritional benefit aside from the probiotics. Finally, if you’re concerned at all about your carbon footprint, making your own soda is a little- to no-waste means of making a tasty drink, with no bottle or can to add to the garbage bin afterwards.
There are numerous websites and books which instruct you to make a ginger bug. Some add equal parts water, sugar, and ginger daily, and some start with a set amount of liquid and add only sugar and ginger daily. I have tried both, and both work great. Using a set amount of liquid is a bit easier though. The ingredients types also vary slightly in terms of water filtration, sugar types, and organic vs non-organic ginger and sugar. Again, I’ve used a combination of all various of ingredient types with no noticeable affect on outcome.
To Make the Ginger Bug
I had made a ginger bug years ago, but eventually gave up. Sometime last year I decided to try again and I used the Ginger Bug recipe from Nourished Kitchen. I use organic ginger (unpeeled), water filtered with a Brita pitcher filter, and plain white sugar. Many folks will tell you that you can store your dormant ginger bug in the fridge, taking it out once a week for a few hours to feed it, but I can assure you mine has fared very well being fed only once every 2-3 weeks! If you wait as long as I do between feedings, I recommended feeding at least twice in a 12 hour period prior to using in a soda to ensure it is extremely active. Wait at least 3-4 hours after feeding before use in soda.
This recipe makes approximately four easy-top home brewing bottles worth of ginger beer. Each bottle holds roughly two liquid cups.
*Ages ago when I was first getting the hang of carbonating my own drinks, I had tried to make a soda out of strawberry juice. When I popped the top the resulting eruption was so powerful it spewed straight into my ceiling creating the largest kitchen disaster I’ve ever made. There was no strawberry soda left in the bottle, and I’ve never tried to make strawberry soda again!