Estimated reading time: 8 minutes
We often use fermenting to preserve foods, such as sauerkraut or chowchow. Fermented foods are great for gut health and digestion, boosting the immune system, and may even help with challenges such as depression.
But if you want to break out of the sourdough starter box, you may want to try fermenting drinks. The ginger bug is an easy and nearly foolproof method of culturing drinks.
A ginger bug is a fermented starter culture that creates a natural, fizzy, spicy drink. The bug is just the start. Once you ferment your starter, you can use it to make ginger beer, natural soda, and other fermented drinks.
Want to save this post for later? Click Here to Pin It On Pinterest!
How It's Made
A ginger bug is made of three easy ingredients: water, sugar, and fresh ginger. The ginger is rich with wild yeast and bacteria, which activate and ferment when mixed with water and sugar.
It takes about five days to make your ginger bug, and each day, you'll add a little bit more sugar and ginger to feed your starter. You'll know it's ready when its color has darkened, the ginger pieces begin to float, and it has a rich, foamy top. It will smell slightly spicy and gingery, with a mild yeasty smell.
If you keep using and feeding your ginger bug, it can technically last indefinitely. But if you need to take a break from caring for your bug, you can store it in the fridge for up to a month without feeding it. Generally, you can reactivate it by letting it warm up and adding more sugar, water, and ginger.
I was really excited to try this new-to-me method of fermenting. Here's what I did to make my first ginger bug. And it did not disappoint!
Starter Ingredients:
- 2 cups water
- 2 teaspoons sugar
- 1 ounce fresh, diced ginger
Ingredients to Feed the Bug (once per day):
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- ½ ounce diced ginger
Directions:
- To start your bug, heat two cups of water on medium heat in a saucepan.
- Stir in 2 teaspoons of sugar until it is completely dissolved.
- Cool your water to room temperature.
- Dice or grate your fresh ginger. I just chopped mine into small pieces.
- Once your water is cool, add your ginger into a clean mason jar. Pour the sugar water on top, and stir.
- Cover with a lid, but not super tight.
How to Feed Your Ginger Bug
- Dice or grate about half an ounce of fresh ginger. I only measured the ginger once, after that, I just estimated the amount of ginger I needed.
- Add the ginger and one teaspoon of sugar to your starter.
- Stir and cover loosely with a lid.
- Repeat one time a day for five days.
After about 3 days, you'll start to see some bubbles form. Your culture should smell pleasantly gingery and yeasty. If it smells bad or rancid, dump it out and start over with fresh ingredients and a clean jar.
In about five days, the ginger bug will be a little bit darker in color, foamy, and bubbly, and the ginger pieces should be floating. It has a slightly sweet, gingery, yeasty smell. If you taste it, it will have a sharp, gingery flavor.
Some people will drink small amounts of straight ginger bug as a tonic for gut or immune health. But if this is too spicy for you, use it to make ginger beer or natural sodas to get the health benefits and enjoy a naturally bubbly drink.
How to Make a Ginger Bug Drink
Once your ginger bug is ready, you can make it into a sweet, naturally bubbly soda.
Ingredients:
- ½ cup of ginger bug strained
- 7 ½ cups liquid (sweetened herbal tea or flavored juice)
Directions:
- Strain one-half cup of ginger bug. I used a pour-over coffee filter to strain mine.
- Combine ½ cup of the strained ginger bug in a large pitcher with 7 ½ cups of liquid (such as herbal tea, juice, etc). I made a pitcher of sweetened orange spice tea, because I thought it would taste good with the ginger undertones.
- Transfer the mixture into bottles, making sure to leave at least ½ inch of headspace at the top. Headspace is just air space that allows room for expansion – otherwise, your bottle might blow its top.
I just used whatever bottles I had on hand: a small soda bottle, a glass growler, and a carafe. A mason jar would work fine, too – just avoid plastic or metal because they can interfere with the fermentation process and create unusual results.
- Leave your drink to ferment for 2 to 3 days at room temperature for best results. However, it’s safe to drink right away, if you just can’t wait!
- Store in the fridge for up to a couple months.
- Keep feeding your ginger culture or start a fresh one for your next batch of ginger sodas.
Ginger Bug Tips
For best results, you'll want to use organic ginger when possible. Sometimes, non-organic fresh ginger is treated or washed in such a way that it inhibits the growth of good bacteria and wild yeast. If your water is chlorinated, you might get better results if you allow your water to sit out overnight in an open container to allow the chlorine to off-gas.
Remember to cool your water before adding it to the ginger bug starter because boiling water could kill the culture. If your home is chilly, it may take a few extra days for it to get really foamy. That’s ok – just keep feeding it each day.
Lastly, ginger powder or dried ginger is unlikely to work for a ginger bug since the ginger is no longer alive and won't have any active cultures growing on it.
Like this post? Don't Forget to Pin It On Pinterest!
You May Also Like:
Do you have a Book as to all the collected information {Food recipes/ prep etc}?
Thank you