Many years ago, a friend gave me a starter of a ginger bug. I kept it alive for a while but that was before I had the beer type bottles to allow fermenting/fizzing so I let it go. My friend who shared the bug served me some fizzy ginger tea and I loved it but mine never tasted like hers because I couldn’t get it fizz without the bottles.
Yesterday something came across Facebook or a blog I read and I remembered how much I loved that fizzy ginger tea so I thought . . I’m going to see if I can figure out how to do it.
I found two recipes . . one at Wellness Mama and one at The Nourished Kitchen. Wellness Mama uses white sugar; The Nourished Kitchen uses raw can sugar.
I decided to try them both and see which works best.
It will take a week or so for the bug to ferment, then another few days for the tea or juice to ferment into “soda”. I am hopeful it will be as good as I remember!
Am I concerned about the sugar blowing my diet? No. I will not drink much of it and, from what I’ve read, it’s like kombucha in that during the fermenting process, the sugar is “consumed” by the good bacteria. I can’t find any real scientific evidence that there’s no sugar after the fermentations but the scales and my blood glucose levels will let me know.
Dar in NC says
Oh no, I draw the line at eating or drinking anything with the word “bug” in it!! ;-D The word “mother” is ok. LOL
Rieann says
Cultural differences are great aren’t they… America calls it a ‘bug’ someone else calls it a ‘mother’ in Australia we call it a ‘plant’ ie ginger beer plant, and the Kombuch ‘plant’ is called a skobi in some places. English ‘as she is spoke’ is a peculiar language.
Judy H says
I believe some sugar remains, but you’re correct about the fermentation feeding on the sugar. I’ll be interested to see how it affects your glucose, etc.
dezertsuz says
My son used to have all the equipment for making mead from honey, and he loved doing it, as well as enjoying it. Different kind of fermenting, but I did understand the part about needing the right bottles! LOL