All week, there sat my sauerkraut, the ginger "bug", and sourdough starter. I've had yogurt going every couple of days, and experimented with a few other things.
Today I finally was able to tap into some homemade "soda". It just sort of vaguely resembles soda, honestly... it tastes more like Tang, I think. Whatever it is, the kids decided they like it a LOT. And I do, too. Very refreshing.
It's supposed to be probiotic, and is surely better for you than normal juice, and certainly better for you than pop. It's naturally (lightly) carbonated using- I don't know, yeast or something captured from the air. Magic fairies that fly in the window and add sparkle juice in the night, for all I know. I got all my information from the internet, you are welcome to do your own search and research and believe what sounds fun to you.
So, here's how I actually made it:
Start with a glass jar of some sort- cleaned out pasta sauce jar, mason jar, doesn't matter.
-Fill it 3/4 of the way up with non-chlorinated water (preferably filtered, and I think my softened water was a bad idea)
-Add a couple table spoons of ginger. Fresh, chopped ginger with the skin on will work best, but I use ground, dried ginger and it worked... barely.
- Add a bit of sugar. about the same amount as the ginger. It needs to be real sugar, not a sugar substitute. And a bit of molasses for the iron content would help a lot, too.
put a cloth or paper towl or coffee filter over the jar, and secure it with a rubber band.
Every day, a couple times a day, or as often as you think of it, stir this mixture. Once or twice a day you want to feed it a bit more ginger and a bit more sugar.
There are yeast that live on the ginger (and in the air), and they eat the sugar. JUST like making a sour dough starter from scratch using only bread and water. After a couple days, you'll notice it fizz after you stir it. After 4 days to a week, depending on your house's variables, you'll hear it fizz BEFORE you stir it- that's when it's ready to be used. Mix up some soda, or stick it in the fridge with a lid on. Before you use it you'll want to bring it to room temp and feed it again.
To make the pop:
you can use anything sweet to make this. sweetened tea, juice, a sweetened herbal concoction.
In a CLEAN CLEAN CLEAN plastic container with a lid (glass can, and probably will, break) combine:
-about half a gallon of your flavor- juice, sweet tea, what have you. (NOT HOT. warmer than body temperature kills yeast)
- about a quarter cup of your ginger bug starter.
-maybe some extra sugar, if you like sweet things.
- half a gallon or so water
-maybe some salt. I put salt in mine to make a slower ferment since it's so hot outside (and thus, inside), and I like the taste of it that way.
The yeast from your starter will eat up the sugar in your flavorer, The longer it sits, the less sweet it will be. Watch out, let it sit too long and it might turn alcoholic. Or your bottle might explode. We started drinking ours when the carbonation had built up to the point that I couldn't squeeze the bottle anymore. it's still sitting there building up more fizz... I'll refrigerate it tomorrow to slow the carbonation down.
The internet cautions me to take it slow with this drink, because it's supposed to be probiotic, and any time you start probiotics you should do it slowly. I don't know about that, but today I put a little of it in the bottom of my travel mug and filled it the rest of the way with water and it tasted just about perfect, so that's how I'll drink it most of the time- as if it's a concentrate.
enjoy! Go ahead just do it... it's a fun experiment for the kids, at the cost of some ginger and a bottle of juice. Then, taste a tiny bit and you'll find out you actually created something tasty too!
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