06/29/2024
Several people have asked for a recipe and process details for making fermented soda, so here it is!
It’s so simple, I highly recommend. There are lots of videos out there. Here’s what I did, and learned.
First make a ginger bug.
In a glass or plastic container, add
2 c water
1 T chopped, skin-on ginger
1T sugar
Stir with a wooden or plastic stirring device
Metal reacts with the bacteria.
Ginger skin is where the yeast lives.
Costco carries organic ginger. Mine had been in the freezer for a couple months. (Yes, you can store ginger in the freezer! It makes it easier to grate, and if you want to peel it, it’s super easy to peel as it starts to thaw in your hand.)
Cover lightly with something breathable like mesh cloth or a paper towel. I put a rubber band to hold the mesh it place but it is not necessary.
Let it sit on the counter.
Every 24 hours add another T of ginger and T of sugar and stir.
After a couple days bubbles will start to form and it gets fizzy.
Strain out the fizzy ginger bug liquid to use for sodas. Replace the water in the ginger bug and continue feeding and using as you wish.
If you put it in the fridge or freezer it will stop building more fizz. Take it out again and start feeding it to reactivate.
Make soda syrup.
For strawberry rhubarb soda I used
2 c strawberries
2 c chopped rhubarb
2/3 c sugar
4 c water
Slice of lemon
I cooked and mashed the fruit with the sugar and a little bit of water and then added the rest of the water.
Let it boil for a while, not too long. Enough to get all that flavor out of the fruit and into the syrup. It should be super thin syrup, almost sugar water.
The sugar is what the ginger bug feeds off of, so sugar is required.
Use filtered water. Chlorine will kill the ginger bug.
Use fruits of your choice.
Amounts are approximate, it will work out as long as you’re close.
High water fruit? Less water.
Dry fruit? More water.
Sweet fruit? Less sugar.
Tart fruit? More sugar.
Always add lemon or some kind of citrus, it helps the memory of the sugar crystals so they stay in liquid form.
Strain the syrup.
Whatever particles are in the syrup will be in the soda so if you don’t like settling, use a super fine mesh filter. I just squish mine through a regular strainer, sediment included.
Let the syrup cool to room temperature. High temps will kill the ginger bug.
Mix the soda.
I used about 1/4c of ginger bug to 1 c of syrup. Should have used less, like 1/8 c ginger bug to 2c syrup. (This is what I did with the lemon lime)
Add the ginger bug to clean bottles.
Fill the bottle about 3/4 of the way with syrup and screw on the lids.
This should make about 4 bottles of soda, depending on how big your bottles are and how much syrup you made.
I screwed on the lids expecting to burp the bottles every day for a few days. I burped them the same night I made them and could already tell it was getting fizzier.
The next morning I went to burp them again, concerned I may be over-burping, and one of them had already leaked. There was residue all over the counter. This was a bottle with one of those flip top closures and it lost 1/3 of the liquid.
The other three bottles were screw tops. The first one I opened over the sink in case it made a mess. It exploded with so much force (think champagne, shaken) it blew out the screen in the kitchen window covering all the cabinets, ceiling, counters, floor, and me. It was awesome. And sticky.
Luckily none of this happened with the lemon lime.
Let it continue to ferment over a few days to grow that good bacteria and eat some of the sugar. Burp often!
And now you have a home made, good-for-the-gut fermented soda!
Store it in the fridge. The bacteria essentially goes to sleep and stops building pressure once it’s in the fridge.
I still use it as a mix with sparkling water. It’s quite sweet and strongly flavored. You could dilute this into a 12 pack if you wanted to, and it would make a fabulous cocktail mixer. The yeast eats the sugar as it ferments so it becomes less sweet.
You can also leave it to ferment into alcohol, think ginger beer. I believe you just use ginger instead of fruit syrup and ferment longer.
I tried citrus soda next. Lemon, lime and orange. And accidentally dumped it in the sink after a day of work, just as I was about to fill bottles. Oops. The next day I did lemon lime with a smaller amount of ginger bug. It didn’t explode across the kitchen this time and was able to ferment for a few days without exploding. It tastes similar to sprite. So good!
For lemon lime I used
Juice from 6 limes and four lemons - about 1/2 c lime juice and 1 c lemon juice
3/4 c sugar
2 c water
Next fermentation adventure is a rhubarb bug!
