Living Homegrown Podcast – Episode 28 Making Homebrew Ginger Ale

Show Notes: www.LivingHomegrown.com/28

This is the Living Homegrown Podcast, episode #28.

Announcer: Welcome to the Living Homegrown Podcast, where it’s all about how to live farm fresh, without the farm. To help guide the way to a more flavorful and sustainable lifestyle is your host, national PBS TV producer and canning expert Theresa Loe.

Theresa: Hi there everybody and welcome to another episode of the Living Homegrown podcast. I’m your host Theresa Loe and this podcast is where we talk about living farm fresh without the farm. And where we discuss everything from artisan food crafts, like canning, preserving and fermenting, to small space food growing and just how to live a more sustainable lifestyle.

Well for the last few months I have been experimenting with a homebrew soda. Specifically I’ve been playing around with making “Ginger Ale”.

And I’m really excited to share this because it so easy! And I’ve found that it is kind of forgiving. You can make some mistakes along the way and it still works. Also, you an spice it up and make this ginger ale kind of different or make your own unique ginger ale brew. And I just found that to be a lot of fun.

So what I’m talking about here is what’s called making a ginger bug using it to ferment ginger ale. And some people even call this ginger beer. But it’s not like typical regular beer like you might think of. It’s more like root beer and that’s why they call it ginger beer.

Now home fermented ginger ale is also called ginger beer because like any fermented beverage, you CAN get small amounts of alcohol. So if you want it to be more like regular ginger ale and be less alcoholic, you just have short fermentation periods. In other words, the longer you ferment, the more alcohol you get. And this it true with most any home fermented drink, even kombucha you can get alcohol if you do long ferments.

So ginger ale or ginger beer is still perfectly okay to make for your kids you just do it the way I explain here where you do a short fermentation process and you end up with minuscule amounts of alcohol if any. The whole process really takes 7-10 days and you’re finished from start to finish. So it’s pretty easy.

I first learned about ginger bugs when I was researching how to make homemade soda. I had never heard that term before and I thought it sounded so darn CUTE! I was instantly hooked on the whole idea of making a ginger bug and I just wanted to make it just so I could say I had done it. And I found it to be such a simple process and I have been really excited to share it with you. I’ve been trying different recipes and trying to see what can go wrong and what can’t go wrong.

I have made a ton of ginger ale over the last couple of months. I think my family is sick of it now! But I wanted to share all of it with you today.

So in this episode, I am going to share:

Why would you even want to make your own homemade soda?

What exactly is a ginger bug?

How the whole process works. In other words the step by step instructions for how you can create a ginger bug and the fermented ginger ale soda. I will also tell you how you can change up the flavor to create a custom brewed soda.

And how you can kind of create a rhythm so you can keep your ginger bug indefinitely

And at the end I’ll give you some tips for success. Some things I’ve done that make it really successful every time. So let’s dive right in!

So why would you even want to make soda?

Well it’s super easy and it’s super fun. But I think the main reason you would want to try making your own soda is that you have complete control over what’s in it.

You don’t have any high fructose corn syrup. There aren’t any chemicals or preservatives. You’re creating natural, old-fashioned soda at home.

Now it’s also not as sweet as the regular sodas that are in the store. But it does have sugar. However, the sugar that you’re adding is mostly used to feed the yeast and bacteria that you’re using to ferment and that sugar is converted into lactic acid and gives off the byproduct of carbon dioxide which makes the fizz. So it’s definitely not as sweet as a soda from the grocery store. But mostly I thought it was fun because I knew exactly what was going in it and it didn’t have all those chemicals and preservatives.

Alright so what exactly is a ginger bug? What is this ginger bug that I keep talking about?

Well a ginger bug is just a starter that you use to create the fermented beverage. And it’s kind of like a sourdough starter in that i’s a wild starter. You know how you have probably read or maybe even tried making a sourdough starter and you use that to make bread and it relies on wild yeast in the air to make the fermentation. Well a ginger bug is the same thing. It’s created with wild yeast and bacteria that is found on the ginger and in the surrounding air. And it is basically the starter that you need in order to create the ferment to create the bubbles in your ginger ale. Now the cool part is you only need three ingredients to start it. You don’t have to go buy anything special. You don’t have to go buy any special yeast or anything like that.

All you need to make a ginger bug is grated ORGANIC ginger and I use grated for specific reasons (I’ll tell you in a minute), but grated organic sugar, some water and some sugar.

And that’s it!

Now of those three ingredients I use organic ginger because then you are insured it’s not irradiated which can sometimes kill some of the yeast and bacteria that is on it. You want it to have all those natural yeasts on there so organic is the way to go.

As for water I use filtered water because it has less chorine to deal with. But I did try to experiment and use tap water and I did get a ferment. So everybody’s different but if you can use filtered water you will have less choline and you’ll have a better chance of getting those wild yeasts started.

Now as for the sugar, you can use regular, plain white processed sugar and it will totally work. I have done that and it works just fine. But when I do this I prefer to use organic Sucanat which is found at the healthfood store. Now Sucanat is basically just dehydrated organic brown sugar. It still has the molasses and it has some more of the minerals than what you would find in regular white sugar so it tends to work better for the ferment. I use it a lot for a lot of the different kinds of fermenting that I do. And I’ve just always found that I get a faster ferment and I get more carbonation when I use Sucanat in my ferments. But if you don’t have it, you can totally get away with just using regular old white sugar and it will work for you.

So to get this ginger bug, all you do is mix up ginger, water and sugar, place it in a jar and set it at room temp on your kitchen counter. That’s it! You basically just let it sit there. It will start to ferment and you feed it every day for 3-5 days and I’ll tell you exactly how to do that in a minute. And then you use it after it starts to ferment, you use it to create your ginger ale.

So start to finish, the ginger bug and ginger ale can be made in as little as 7-10 days. Once you have that ginger bug going, you can actually do it a little bit faster because you don’t have to wait for the ginger bug to ferment so you can make a batch of ginger ale about every 5 days or so.

But if you ever decide you want to stop making ginger ale but you want to save your ginger bug, you can store it in the refrigerator and then instead of feeding it every day, you would just feed it once a week. And if you just decide okay I am done with ginger ale I don’t want to make it anymore you can just throw away your ginger bug and make a new batch when you start again because you don’t need any special ingredients other than the ginger, sugar and water. So it’s pretty simple.

Let me explain how easy it is to make this ginger bug and I think you’ll see what I mean about how easy it is.

So you take a glass quart canning jar. I happen to have a lot of canning jars so I use a canning but any glass container that’s about a quart size works great. And in that jar you add:

2 cups of filtered water 1 Tbsp grated organic ginger 1 Tbsp sugar (in my case organic Sucanot rather than regular white sugar)

Y stir it up and then you cover it with either a cheesecloth or a paper coffee filter and if you don’t have that you can even use a papertowel and put a rubber band to hold it on and you set it on the counter. The covering is really to keep insects and bugs and flies from flying down inside. But you want it to be able to breathe and get air and that’s why you don’t put a tight lid on it. You just want to put a cover on it where air can flow in and out. Once it’s sitting on your counter, every 24 hours you’re going to feed it. And the way you do that is you add: 1 Tablespoon grated ginger 1 Tablespoon sugar

So you feed it just like a pet every 24 hours for about 3-5 days. And sometime within those 3-5 days you will start to see it fermenting.

Now how can you tell? Well you will either see… • Small bubbles rising up to the top. You’ll actually see the fermenting happening while it’s sitting on the counter. That’s why you want to use a glass container so you can keep your eye on it.

• Or you will some bubbles forming around the top of the mixture

• Or there might be foam around the edges

• Or the way I can usually tell is when I go to feed it, when I add in the tablespoon of ginger and the tablespoon of sugar, when I go to stir it, it fizzes up just like it would if it was a carbonated drink. It gets all fizzy. And I immediately know okay, we now have fermentation going.

Now once you have that fermentation going then you’re ready to move onto your next step. But if you DON’T see signs of fermenting after 3-5 days then I would give it another day or two just to see if maybe it’s a little slow. Maybe it’s cold and it doesn’t have enough temperature in the room to really get started.

But if after that you STILL don’t see any fermenting, after about 7 days, or you ever notice an off smell, then just throw it out and start over. And I would recommend you start with a new piece of ginger. Because it could be something is wrong with that particular ginger you started with.

Now it should smell either like ginger or it may start to smell like beer. But anything that smells off, I would throw it out and start again. As a side note, I just want to make sure you know that in warmer weather this whole thing happens really fast. Like during our heat wave we had a couple weeks ago, I had that ferment in about a day and a half or two days. It was already bubbling and it was going really strong. But other times when it’s cold, maybe in the middle of winter, it can take 5-7 days to get going. So don’t panic if it does take 7 days. It may not necessarily mean that there’s anything wrong. It could just be that it’s not warm enough to really get that ferment going fast.

Once you hit at least 3 days AND you’ve noticed the fermentation is starting, then you can move onto the next step which is mixing up your flavored sugar water to created your ginger ale. Because after that you you are going to add some of this ginger bug to your flavored water and start the whole ginger ale process.

Before I go into that though I know some of you may be you know jogging as you’re listening to this or you’re driving in the car and your’e thinking oh man, I need to write down the recipe. You don’t have to write anything down. I have the complete recipe you can print out on my website and it’s in the show notes for this episode. All you have to do is go to LivingHomegrown.com/28 and I’ll have all the instructions. I’ll even have some photos and you can print it out and whenever you’re ready you can dive into making this homemade soda. So it’s pretty simple and I’ll have it all there for you.

Okay so back to the recipe. So you have your ginger bug all ready, rip roaring ready to go.

Now you’re reading to start making the ginger ale or flavored water part of the recipe.

What you’ll do is you’re going to take a medium sized sauce pan and combine:

• 2 quarts of water • 1 cinnamon stick • ¾ cup of sugar (and again, you can use whatever type of you sugar you want - the white sugar, the Sukanot, whatever you have) • A 3” slice of ginger, and I slice it really, really thin and I add that to the water

Then…

• You bring it up to a simmer and stir until the sugars dissolves.. (it just takes a couple minutes)

• Then you turn off the heat, cover it and just let the whole mixture steep for about 15 minutes.

• Now most recipes don’t call for the cinnamon stick. I just kind of like that, I like that little hint of cinnamon. If you don’t want to have the a cinnamon stick you can make regular, standard ginger ale without the cinnamon stick and it still tastes really good. So after 15 minutes you’re going to strain out the ginger slices and then cinnamon stick.

• And the you’re going to stir in 1/3 cup of freshly squeezed lemon juice. This is about 2 large lemons off of my lemon tree. And it comes to about 1/3 cup. And again these recipes are very forgiving. If you decide you want a little more punch, a little more lemon or a little more ginger, by all means go for it. It still works great.

• After you add your lemon juice you let the whole mixture cool down until it is below 100 degrees or you can just wait until it’s room temperature. And then you’re going to be adding in ¼ cup of your strained ginger bug to that mixture. So you take your ginger bug and you strain out enough of it so you have 1/4 cup end you pour that into your flavored ginger ale mixture that you have in the pot. The rest of the ginger bug you set aside and I will tell you how you can keep that going in a minute. But for right now you just strain out so you have a 1/4 cup of your ginger bug. That has all of the yeasts and the bacteria and the lactic acid in it, and you’re going to be adding that, your starter, to the mixture. So you stir it all up and the next step is you’re going to bottle it all up.

So just to recap this is what you’ve done so far. You have created your ginger bug from scratch using wild yeast. And you mixed up a flavored sugar water solution that is the basis for your ginger ale. And then you have added a 1/4 cup of the strained ginger bug to that solution. And now you’re ready to put it into bottles. And it’s at this point that it’s going to finish off it’s fermentation and create the carbonation.

Now that sugar water you may be thinking oh man I just added a whole lot of sugar to this solution I thought we were making something with less sugar than the stores. Well it will be, because those yeasts and bacteria are going to eat that sugar that’s in the sugar water and they will give off the carbon dioxide in the process and that’s going to create the bubbles inside the ginger ale. That’s why you need the sugar water.

So it’s important to understand exactly how this carbonation thing works because I want you to understand it so you understand the safety factors that come into play when you start bottling up something to make it carbonated. You see when you just let the mixture sit in an unsealed jar with the top open like we did when we made the ginger bug, the sugar in the mixture will be eaten up by the starter and it gives off the carbon dioxide like it did before. But now we’re going to be putting it inside the bottle and sealing that bottle to capture that carbon dioxide. And it will build up pressure inside the bottle and when you open that bottle in a couple days it will pop and the bubbles will start to rise. So that’s what makes it fizzy like a regular soda, alright?

But I want you to understand that because there’s a word of caution here — you can bottle this up and let it sit at room temperature and then forget about it. At this stage when you put something that is still fermenting into the bottle you need to pay attention and watch it closely for the next couple of days. If you don’t, your bottles will either blow their tops or they’ll shatter, which either way could be really dangerous. So this is the point where you really pay attention. You don’t put it in bottles and then go on vacation. You have to watch closely so when you get to the proper carbonation or fermentation level you place these in the refrigerator and slow down the fermentation process so you don’t have any accidents. Alright?

So what kind of bottles would you want to use when making your sodas?

I like to use what are called flip top bottles. They’re those bottles that have the wire metal bales with a rubber gasket. They look like old fashioned beer bottles or sarsaparilla bottles. That is what I use. The idea is that if too much pressure builds up inside one of those bottles, it will blow off that bale top and you don’t break the glass. And it usually works. But it is possible for those to be snapped down so hard that the bottle can still break. So even if you are using those you still have to keep your eye on it.

You can also use old plastic litre bottles and by old I mean re-use plastic litre bottles that you use for soda and those have a screw top lid. And the advantage here is you can feel them and tell when they’ve become pressurized. You can do that with glass. But with a plastic bottle you can squeeze it and as pressure builds the bottle gets harder and harder until it gets rock hard and at that point you know to put ti n the refrigerator.

Also if you use plastic, if one of them explodes, you are only dealing with plastic…not glass or shards of glass all over the place.

The one thing that I do NOT recommend that you use is any other glass container that has a sealed lid. Like no canning jars. Don’t use your canning jars to seal up your fermenting soda. I know a lot of people do this, but it is so easy for them to explode. And if enough pressure builds in there you will have shards of glass everywhere. It could be really dangerous. So I recommend you either use the flip top bottles which are made for home brew beer, or you use a plastic litre bottle or a plastic soda bottle with a screw top so you can squeeze it to tell when the pressure is built up.

Alright so back to our recipe. You have your strained ginger bug into your ginger ale liquid and now you’re ready to bottle it up.

So you take your soda mixture and pour it into clean, bottles (whichever kind you picked) and you seal them. And you let them set at room temperature and you check them every single day for about 3 days.

Now do you check them? Well if they are plastic, you squeeze them and you can tell that the pressure hasn’t built up yet. When they start to get really hard then you know that the pressure is built up and you would put them in the refrigerator.

If you are using one of those flip top glass bottles, the way I check it is I open one. Now it does release some of the bubbles every time you do this so I have one bottle I will always check and that one bottle may have less carbonation when I’m all finished than the others but it’s kind of my test bottle.

So when you open it, it will fizz and pop and that’s how you know the pressure is built up and it’s time to refrigerator. It usually takes about three days. As soon as you know you have the pressure built up you refrigerate the bottles and you drink them in about a week.

Now the cool temperature is going to slow down the fermentation process and it also gets it to the perfect temperature for you to enjoy all those incredible flavors that you just created. And that homemade soda not only has the wonderful flavors and the less sugar and the no preservatives, but you’re also getting lactic bacteria which is better for you than chemicals in a regular store bought soda. So it’s good all the way around.

So while you’re waiting for your ginger ale to finish in those last few days, or you’ve put it into the refrigerator and you're waiting for it to chill down, what do you do with that ginger bug that you had started? After you have pulled off that ¼ cup to make your soda, you add back ¼ cup water and 1 teaspoon of sugar and then it’s good to go. That’s it!

You just continue to feed it everyday, every 24 hours with a tablespoon of ginger and a tablespoon of sugar until your next batch. And if you need a break and you don’t want to make anything with your ginger bug and you don’t want to throw it away, then just put the ginger ginger bug in the refrigerator and one time each week, pull it out and bring it to room temperature and and feed it with one tablespoon of ginger and one tablespoon of sugar and you just do that like once a week to keep it alive. It’s kind of like a pet turtle [laughs]. And that’s all you have to do! And it’ll last indefinitely as long as it has something to eat. It’s pretty simple. Kind of like teenagers. [laughs]

So let me give you some tips that I’ve picked up from doing this the last couple of months.

First keep in mind that we’re talking about wild fermentation here. It’s just that… it’s a little bit wild and that means it can be unpredictable. Each batch you make will be slightly different.

And one of the the biggest factors in making each batch different is the room temperature. So remember, when the temperatures are warm, the fermentation goes a little faster. And when it’s cold, it can take a little longer. Like I mentioned before during our recent heat wave here, my ginger bug was done in 2 days instead of 3-5. So you just have to keep your eye on it and the more you do this you kind of get a feel for it.

I also highly recommend that you keep a fermentation journal. I always tell my students to do this and it’s something that I do because you you’re going to remember what you did but a few months later you completely forget what it is you did before when you got that great batch. So it’s important to keep a journal or a record of what you did. Did you add cinnamon this time? Did you add some other spices? Did you ferment longer? Did you ferment shorter? Things like that. Did you use a different sugar? All of that you want to keep in your journal. I have a really pretty notebook that I keep fro that and every fermentation project that I do I record the dates, what happened, what went wrong, what went right. And it helps me be a better fermenter.

Another tip is you can experiment with other flavorings instead of just ginger and cinnamon. So when you’re mixing up your flavored sugar water you can add other spices if you want. You can add all spice or clove or even a vanilla bean and you can taste that sugar water before you add in your ginger bug and if you don’t like it you can stop and mix up something completely different and try it again without wasting the ginger bug that you worked so hard to create. So it’s pretty simple to come up with your own flavor combinations and you can have a lot of fun with this. It’s not a big investment. There’s not a lot of money involved. It’s just the time it takes you. A few minutes each day to feed your ginger bug and that’s it.

So I think you can see this is pretty simple. I hope you try it and I hope you have a lot of fun with it.

And just remember that the full printable recipe is in the show notes for this episode. Plus I will include some book recommendations if you want to dive into this whole homemade soda making a little bit further.

Just go to LivingHomegrown.com/28. And I’ll have all that information right there for you.

So that’s it for today. I hope you give this a try. It’s a lot of fun. Thanks so much for listening. I really appreciate that you took time out of your busy day to spend it listening to my podcast. Just keep working on those food choices that are local, seasonal and homegrown. See you next time! Take care.

Announcer: That’s all for this episode of the Living Homegrown podcast. Visit LivingHomegrown.com to download Theresa’s free canning resource guide and find more tips on how to live farm fresh, without the farm. Be sure to join Theresa Loe next time on the Living Homegrown podcast.

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