Ginger Bug

Discover How to Make a Ginger Bug at Home: Step-by-Step Guide and Pro Tips! Learn the Secrets to Crafting Your Own Probiotic-Rich Beverage Base. Perfect for Homemade Sodas, Kombucha, and More. Start Your Fermentation Journey Today!

Somehow making Kimchi lately and using Pinterest, a suggestion to make a fermented drink like Ginger Beer showed up as a recommendation. Eventually I gave in and got interested in how to make it. Seems quite simple. Living in Montreal, Quebec a few years back, they always had some delicious small batch Spruce beer sold in the local shops. Learning about the history of spruce beer and records showing that European explorers in North America were drinking spruce to stave off scurvy was quite interesting. I first learned you needed to create a ginger bug to begin the fermentations process. Essentially organic ginger and some sugar to feed the fermentation process not unlike the Apple sugars and the Napa cabbage recipes.

Ingredients

• 1 Tablespoon organic fresh ginger (unpeeled and grated)
• 1 Tablespoon raw sugar (used brown sugar)
• 3 tablespoons filtered water (since we don’t generally use filtered water, I followed some recommendations to boil the tap water first)

Instructions

1. Place the unpeeled organic ginger and sugar into the mason jar.
2. Add the water and stir or swish around well until the sugar completely dissolves.
3. Cover the jar with a cheesecloth or other breathable cloth and a rubber band and let it sit on the counter for 24 hours. Several times during the day give the mixture a good stir or swish around whenever it comes to mind.
4. The ginger bug requires daily feeding. It likes to eat 1 tablespoon of unpeeled grated organic ginger, 1 teaspoon of sugar and a little bit of water.
5. Continue feeding the ginger bug and mixing the ingredients daily. After a few days, you should see some bubbling activity. When the jar is full and bubbly, the well fed bug is ready to use.

After feeding the ginger bug daily, I started to notice bubbling on day 5 in the evening. There have been mixed reviews on making a ginger bug. A few recipes suggest starting with 2 cups of water. In those recipes, water is not added daily, only additional ginger and sugar along the journey. This recipe in contrast only asks to start with 3 Tablespoons of water, 1 Tablespoon of organic grated unpeeled ginger and 1 teaspoon of raw sugar. The guide I followed did not give a set amount of daily recommended water. However, seeing that 16 Tbsps. is in 1 cup, it would probably be safe to add the full 3 Tbsps. of water daily, especially considering that a portion of the mixture will be removed when eventually making a soda drink like ginger beer.