Have you ever wanted to make your very own homemade soda? A soda that is loaded with healthy microbes that can help keep your gut (and taste buds) happy? Something cool, fizzy, and refreshing that has ingredients you can pronounce? Well, this week I am going to show you how I make my homemade lime probiotic soda with your very own ginger bug!
We make this all of the time!! In fact, we make it so often that we keep it on draft at our house!
However, whenever anyone learns that I make homemade soda, the question that I always hear is….
Is it like Kombucha?
No, it really isn’t like Kombucha. I mean in the sense that they are both gut healthy, fermented drinks, yes. You see, Kombucha is a fermented drink made from tea (usually a green or black tea) and sugar and uses a SCOBY (a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast) to initiate fermentation. The SCOBY looks jiggly… like a slice of Jell-o or gelatin. Really, Kombucha has more in common with vinegar production, in my opinion. Now, I have nothing against Kombucha, but that just isn’t what we are making here!
What is a ginger bug?
A ginger bug is made from ginger, sugar, and water, which you use to grow the necessary beneficial yeasts and bacteria that can let you ferment a variety of homemade probiotic-loaded fizzy sodas.
What are probiotics?
Have you ever had a stomach bug or ever taken a round or two of antibiotics and then found your digestion wasn’t up-to-par? Perhaps you couldn’t adequately digest your food or found yourself with gastric distress?
Probiotics are what are needed to help get your digestion back in gear. You can think of them like vitamins for your gut to keep your system running smoothly. They are present in foods like yogurt and fermented foods and beverages. You could also take them in pill form, but it is better to get your probiotics from natural sources whenever possible. We eat fermented foods daily!! They are most definitely a staple in our diet.
Not only is it important to be aware of probiotics but prebiotics (preprobiotics) as well… i.e. foods that keep the probiotic microbes happy. These are foods high in dietary fiber like bananas, garlic, and oats, for example, but it appears that ginger1 may also be a prebiotic food as well!
A probiotic soda made from a ginger bug is a delicious and healthy way to help boost your gut microbes and get your system running in tip top shape!
For more information on the importance of gut health and its role in your overall health, I highly recommend Alanna Collen’s book on the subject.2
This topic is a bit of a hobby and special interest of mine also, so if you would like to see additional recipes and approaches to fermentation which will be covered in future posts, please subscribe to my blog here, so you can be notified when I publish a new post. Feel free to contact me also if you have any questions!
For now, though, let’s get started on the ginger bug!
Pin it now to save it for later!
What materials do I need to start a ginger bug?
- Clean glass jar that holds at least 24 ounces (you could re-use a spaghetti or large pickle jar)
- unpeeled ginger (fresh if possible, but I have seen it work with frozen also)
- pure cane sugar (to feed the microbes)
- unchlorinated water (to keep the microbes happy)
- paper towel or nut milk bag to cover the jar (the microbes need to breathe)
- rubber band (to keep the jar cover in place)
How do I start a ginger bug and make my very own soda?
Check out my video below where I describe how you can start your very own ginger bug and use it to make a refreshing, fizzy lime soda!
How about written instructions for starting the ginger bug?
Once you’ve watched the video, perhaps you would like a “cheat sheet” reminder of starting the ginger bug? Here goes…. Be sure you have watched the video first to see how I make it though.
Day 1:
In a clean glass jar (doesn’t have to be sterilized), add the following:
- 2 tablespoons unpeeled ginger (chopped, grated, or diced)
- 2 tablespoons pure cane sugar
- 1/4 cup unchlorinated water
Stir. Cover with a nut milk bag or paper towel and wrap a rubber band around the top so that the cover stays in place.
Place your ginger bug baby at room temperature, away from direct sunlight.
Day 2 through day 6 or 7:
Feed again each day with ginger, sugar, and water and stir as on day 1. Keep the ginger bug covered with the cloth and at the same conditions.
After a week or so, the ginger bug should hopefully look similar to image below…
- ginger pieces floating
- ginger pieces that have sunk to the bottom
- happy bubbles on top or when you gently move your ginger bug
Your bug is now ready to use or store!
Storing your ginger bug
Replace the nut milk bag/ paper towel and rubber band with the original jar lid, close tightly, and place the ginger bug in the fridge. Be sure you feed your bug weekly thereafter if you store it in the fridge.
To feed, simply remove the jar lid, add the ginger, sugar, and water then stir as above. Replace the jar lid and put back in the fridge. That’s it!
However, when possible, bring your ginger bug back to room temperature and feed as above (replacing lid with the mesh) to reactivate it prior to using it to start your soda. Fermentation starts more smoothly if the culture is active and happy!
Using your ginger bug
Once your ginger bug is ready and active, you can use it to create a homemade soda! Be sure you feed it after use (using the same amounts as you started with) also to replace what you have used. Scroll to the bottom to see my recipe for my homemade fizzy lime soda!
To ferment your soda, you can use a 1 liter glass flip-top bottle, or you can reuse clean soda bottles. Just adjust the recipe for the volume of your vessel. Be sure though to leave at least 2 inches headspace! Don’t fill your bottle to the top!
Natural carbonation and re-carbonation!
One of the distinct characteristics of soda is, well, that it is fizzy, right?
You see the fizziness in our homemade soda doesn’t come from artificial sources (carbonated water) as in the commercial production but from the microbes themselves! As the microbes consume the sugar in the fermentation bottle, they produce carbon dioxide, which has nowhere to go but in your very own soda! BOOM! Fizzy soda! Yay you!
So, also, an additional benefit of using a ginger bug is that once you open the soda bottle, pour a glass, and put the bottle back in the fridge, it will re-carbonate! No more flat sodas after opening! Does your commercial store-bought version do that?
This also means that fermentation/ carbonation continues after you put the soda in the fridge… it is just slowed down. If it has been several days in between opening, open gently!
NEVER EVER shake it prior to opening… it is a SODA! If you see that it has settled out, GENTLY invert a couple of times. No shaking!
Is it alcoholic?
There can be very trace amounts of alcohol, but short fermentation times and wild yeasts such as these will yield extremely low levels (0.5% ABV or below). Feel free to add some alcohol to your final beverage though if this is what you are going for!
A word of caution and a few tips….
Ready to try it with other fruits to make other types of sodas? As you start to play with other versions of homemade sodas made with your ginger bug, take special note….
You can play around and vary your sugar, fruits, and your ratios of each, however….
You may need to adjust the sugar in your recipe if you are working with a sweeter fruit. Sugar is the primary food for the microbes, so more sugar means more fermentation. More fermentation, in this case, means more carbonation. More carbonation, and you can end up with something closer to a champagne uncorking event…. If I am working with a new fruit (especially a very sweet fruit), I take my completed soda outside in the grass away from buildings to open it the first time! I remember the first time I made pineapple soda…. definite champagne-style uncorking!
If your fruits are especially acidic, you may not have success if you add too much fruit juice. Too much acidity can impede the growth of the fermenting microbes. I find that with limes if I add too much juice, fermentation/ carbonation will not occur and after 2 or 3 days you are just left with what you started with… basically just juice! I settled on 1/4 cup of lime juice in a 1 liter recipe, since it reproducibly gives me good fermentation and flavor.
Could you use this to make ginger ale or ginger beer? Absolutely! I do that sometimes as well!!
Fizzy Lime Probiotic Soda (from a Homemade Ginger Bug)
Notes
For fermentation vessels, you can use glass flip-top style bottles, or you could reuse clean soda bottles. This base recipe makes a one liter batch, but feel free to adjust your volume of your ingredients for the size vessel you are using.
Ingredients
One liter recipe
- 1/4 cup pure cane sugar
- 1/4 cup fresh lime juice
- 1/4 cup active ginger bug, run through a sieve to remove ginger pieces
- water, divided
- 1 liter glass or plastic bottle
Instructions
- In a heat-resistant bowl or cup, dissolve sugar in 3/4 cup boiling water, stirring to help sugar dissolve.
- Once sugar is dissolved, set aside to cool slightly.
- Add 1 cup cool or room temperature water to dissolved sugar (to help reduce the temperature of the sugar).
- To your fermentation vessel, add lime juice and 1 3/4 cup cool or room temperature water.
- Add your cooled, dissolved sugar to the fermentation vessel.
- Add 1/4 cup sieved ginger bug to fermentation vessel.
- Adjust volume with cool or room temperature water to final volume of 1 liter. Be sure to leave at least 2 inches headspace!
- Cap or seal vessel and invert 2 times gently to mix.
- Set fermenting soda on the counter (away from direct sunlight) for 2 or 3 days.
- Place soda in fridge to chill.
- Lu et al. (2017). Prebiotic Potential and Chemical Composition of Seven Culinary Spice Extracts. Journal of Food Science, 82(8): 1807–1813. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5600121/
↩︎ - Collen, Alanna. (2016). 10% Human: How Your Body’s Microbes Hold the Key to Health and Happiness. New York: Harper Paperbacks ↩︎
Leave a Reply