Lacto-fermented soda skillshare – make your own ginger ale, cola, root beer and more
One of the really popular workshops at the PASA Conference this year was titled: “Lacto-Fermented Soda Making: The fun and easy way”. John and Dana Eisenstein of Jade Family Farm were incredibly generous in sharing their expertise (they say it’s just a hobby – their real vocation is vegetables), and I’ve tried to summarize the workshop as best I can.
John started with a caveat: If you’re hoping to make the sweet stuff like commercially available sodas, this is not for you. These drinks have a distinctive crispness, some might say sharpness, to them. The bonus of these sodas is that they are probiotic and easy to digest. Before starting, it is important to use clean equipment – bottles, jars, utensils, hands should all be thoroughly washed and dried. Sterilizing everything, however, is not really necessary – this is easy, remember!
Materials needed:
The Starter
Fresh (very important) ginger root
White sugar
1- one quart Mason jar
non-chlorinated water
The Wort
A large pot for boiling water
Sweetener (evaporated cane juice, sucanat, honey, agave syrup, malt extract, maple syrup – avoid white sugar, brown sugar, molasses, “raw” sugar, corn syrup).
Flavoring (ginger, burdock, sassafrass, herbs, your imagination)
A fine mesh strainer
The Fermentation
Large glass container, bottle or brewer’s carboy with a fermentation lock
or a brightly colored balloon (the color is just for fun) and a pin
Maturation
Clean glass beer bottles – from beer with non-twist-off caps
A good funnel that fits into the mouth of beer bottles
Bottle caps and a bench top capper (available at home brewing supply houses)
Patience, vigilance and an appetite for adventure.
This recipe is for Lacto-fermented Ginger Ale, so you’ll need:
4 oz. ginger root
3 C. sucanat or other sweetener
Juice from 4 lemons
1 Q. starter
Let’s get started!
The Starter – “In order to ferment anything” John tells us, “you need a starter. Ours is cultured from fresh ginger root”.
- Chop 1-2 tablespoons of fresh ginger (using a box grater or food processor is nice and quick)
- Add to a quart mason jar full of non-chlorinated water.
- Add 1 t. of white sugar and cover container. Store at ~75 degrees and add 1 t. white sugar daily for 6 days until the starter is active. You’ll know it’s active when you see little bubbles coming off of the ginger and the water becomes somewhat cloudy. If bits of mold appear on the surface, scoop the mold off. If it returns, sorry, you’ll need to start the process again with clean everything.
- So, after a week, you should have a live, bacteria-rich starter!
The starter is ready for fermentation
The Wort – John says: “Wort is the word for the soda before it is fermented. You need 1 ½ C of sweetener per gallon of wort, good water and flavorings. Flavorings depend on the kind of soda being brewed,” he says, but encouraged us to use our imagination when it comes to our favorite flavors. We’ll be using ginger for this recipe.
- Finely chop/shred/process ginger – count on 2 oz. of ginger per gallon of wort.
- Boil 3 C. Sucanat, 4 oz. ginger in approx. two quarts of water for 20 minutes. Add the juice of 4 lemons and let cool.
- When cool, transfer to larger fermenting vessel, add enough water to equal 2 gallons, then add 1 Q. starter – except for 1 inch of bottom with ginger chunks. This can be made into new starter.
The Fermentation – Keep the mixture covered and in a warm (75 degrees F) place. If using a carboy and fermentation lock, you’re all set. Otherwise, a rubber balloon with a few pin holes poked in it then placed over the opening will keep bad stuff out of the ferment while allowing gas from the fermentation process to escape.
- Taste the soda after two days and every day thereafter. When it is a little bit on the sweet side, it’s time to bottle. The remaining sweetener will be consumed and the soda will be perfectly flavored. This seems like the only time in the process that requires extreme vigilance.
A carboy with fermentation lock and a bag of sucanat
The Maturation
- Bottle the soda using a funnel, clean beer bottles and a capper. Again, keep it warm to allow for the fermentation to continue.
- Taste the soda every day (recapping with a new cap) and when the carbonation level is to your liking, refrigerate immediately. OK, I guess this part requires vigilance, too. John provided a firm warning in his materials:
“WARNING: If you use more than the recommended amount of sweetener in your wort, fail to refrigerate your carbonated soda promptly or neglect your soda in any way, you run the risk of over carbonation and potentially exploding bottles, flying shards of glass, and almost certain gruesome death! So pay attention.” What can I say, I like the drama of the statement.
You’re done! Really. Ready to drink. And soda will keep in the fridge for a long time. “Years”, says John. “Really!”
Maintenance
So, if you liked this process, and you want to do it again, you will need to feed and care for your starter by adding 3-4 t. of white sugar to the remaining chunks of ginger and fill the quart jar with clean water. Continue to feed the starter 1 t. of sugar every 3-4 days. The starter can be put into a “state of suspended animation” by sleeping in the back of the fridge. Awaken it by feeding sugar and leaving in a warm spot.
Other recipes
Root Beer
3 C. Sucanat as sweetener
2 oz. sassafrass
1 oz. sarsaparilla
½ oz burdock
water
1 Q. starter
Boil herbs and sucanat in some water for 30 minutes. When cool, add enough water to make two gallons and add starter (except for 1 inch of bottom with ginger chunks). Ferment. Good optional additions are limes and vanilla extract (add vanilla at bottling).
Cola (we like to call it Ferm-a-cola…Coka-ferma? hmmm…)
3 C. Sucanat as sweetener
2 oz. cola bark
cinnamon
water
Juice of 4 limes
Boil cola bark and sucanat in some water for 60 minutes. Add lime juice and cinnamon. When cool, add enough water to make two gallons and add starter (except for 1 inch of bottom with ginger chunks). Ferment and bottle. This does contain caffeine.
Happy soda making!
Tags: soda
March 18th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
Hey there, I’m so excited about this, I made my starter and am ready today to move to the next step, but I’m totally confused, in the next step as I read it, you make a wort, but there is no mention of when to add the starter? You say that the new wort remnants can make a new starter, but when do you add the old starter? Thanks for any help you can offer.
Best,
Urban Food Guy
March 18th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
Hi Mark – I’m so glad you’re doing this!
I’m sorry you’re confused, these directions are a bit “stream of consciousness”…
In step 3. of the Wort section, it says to add 1 quart of the starter to the wort and water mixture (once it’s cooled).
So, after the “old” starter is ready (cloudy, bubbly) add all but 1 ” of it to the larger container that holds cooled wort and water. The remaining 1″ will be for a new starter.
Does that clarify the recipe a bit? Can’t wait to hear how you like it – and just in time for Spring!
March 26th, 2009 at 7:43 pm
Thank you!
I knew I was just missing something obvious! I put my old starter in the fridge I did it for 6 days, but it didn’t get bubbly, guess I need to let it sit out for a few more days!
Yeah and trying to find cola bark in NYC forget it!
Thanks!
April 7th, 2009 at 11:18 pm
So will using a ginger based starter in a root beer formula mess up the root beer? Or should I make a starter out of sassafras?
April 18th, 2009 at 9:36 pm
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April 19th, 2009 at 6:39 am
Adam, the ginger is really only a starter, so, in short, no. The ginger will be fine for root beer. Sassafras is for the flavoring in the wort.
April 29th, 2009 at 9:23 am
HI
Making root beer for the first time
Seems like the wort mixed with the water and starter is getting gulatinous after 3 days, is this right?
Im also noticing a white film on one jar ( i made two half gallon jars cuz i couldn’t find a gallon jar in new york city)
Is the white film mean its moldy and therefore rotten?
How much vanilla extract do u recommend for 160z bottle? I bottle 16hrs ago, is it too late, does the alcohol content affect the fermentation?
I also like the idea of lime, do u juice a lime in to the wort before you boil it?
THANKS BREWERS!!
Fizzy in Brooklyn
May 10th, 2009 at 8:28 pm
Jennifer, First thing – go back, review your procedural notes.
Check your brewing ingrediants, the water used, how the utensisls and jars were cleaned, etc. OK, you did write down what you did and how you did it right??? I have issues with my beers at times, and when I look at what I did and compare it to what I THOUGHT I did, there is great divide!!! I would lay bets that you used city water, or some form of choloinated water, even with sanitization of your brewing items. Just listening to what you are describing, gulatinous being thicken, stiff solution, think you didn’t have any live beneficial bacteria. City water will kill just about anything. (sorry, bad hand!). If you did follow the instructions to the letter, and didn’t use chlorinated water, then, something with the bacteria didn’t catch. Which happens. So, do like I do, throw the starter out, and do it again, and again, and again, until it works. I have poured a few gallons of brew on my plants in my yard along with spent grains from failed batches. And I haven’t had a plant or veggie complain yet?! Good luck and keep at it.
May 18th, 2009 at 4:30 am
Hey, thanks a lot for the article i have been trying to figure out how to do this for quite a while, but didn’t know the name of the process so i always found results telling me to “add carbonated water” when i wanted to do it this way. Thank you very much Also, in the cola recipe it says “cinnamon” but it doesn’t say how much, how much should i use?
May 18th, 2009 at 9:18 pm
Also, it says Kola bark, i cant find kola bark anywhere only kola nut, where did you find yours?
May 27th, 2009 at 1:19 am
Wow I am so excited, I finally found a carboy in Brooklyn, I took my starter our that has been patiently waiting in the fridge and tomorrow I begin! Just wanted to say that in the recipe you say the juice of 4 lemons, but in the pictures you have limes. It’s funny cuz I used to travel to SE Asia all the time and they were always saying lemons, but using limes, I don’t even think they have lemons in Thailand. Somehow they’ve become inter-changeable.
Thanks again this is so much fun
June 4th, 2009 at 2:55 am
when following the recipe for cola my kola nuts set on fire, i am typing this with one hand because my other one is covered in burn blisters and second degree burns. DO NOT BOIL FOR 60 MINUTES
June 17th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
Our friend Mark (here in the comments and @UrbanFoodGuy) has posted his experience on his blog and has amended the instructions to provide a bit more clarity. Thank you, Mark!
http://urbanfoodguy.blogspot.com/2009/06/homemade-ginger-beer-lacto-fermented.html
September 19th, 2009 at 7:31 pm
having hard time locating cola bark. do you know of a website
September 20th, 2009 at 10:09 pm
I saw you presentation in the 2007 Pasa conference. I loved your soda. I have stomach problems which improved after drinking your soda. Since then, I’ve made several starters very carefully and ended up with alcohol producing wild yeast and major funk. Actually the funk was nice but the alcohol was very sharp tasting. My home beer brewing has been hit or miss even with very diligent sanitation procedures until I moved it outside. I make sauerkraut, lacto pickles, and daily sour dough bread, beer and wine…..and mill grain. We also process hundreds of pounds of fruit and produce from our small farm. Seems my kitchen has developed a flora of all sorts of fermenting yeasts and bacteria. So I am trying my ginger lacto starter again…outside….I hope it works.
December 8th, 2009 at 8:45 am
[...] It should be ready to try in a week. If it works well, I’d like to try some of the recipes here… I kept my ginger beer bug going to I can try using it [...]