Ginger Bug Experiments
I have always wanted to make my own Kombucha.
The major hurdle however was that you need a SCOBY to get started, which you can either get from someone who donates a piece of theirs or by buying it somewhere (e.g. on the internet).
When my friend made a post about his Ginger Bug, I got quite excited!
The main difference to a SCOBY is that the wild yeast doing the fermentation is already readily available on the skin of conventional over-the-counter organic ginger from your local grocery store!
So I decided to give it a try and... failed. My friend reported the same outcome.
Nevertheless, I decided to document some highlights of the process.
The beginning
In the beginning, I just glanced over the instructions and bought the necessary ingredients. How hard could it be. Something that immediately throws me off is the American way of measuring everything in (standardized!) cups, tablespoons, and so on, down to 1/8th of a teaspoon!?
Over the years I have repeatedly tried to follow American recipes and using online conversion tools because obviously, a volumetric cup of water is not the same weight as a cup of flour or sugar or even butter.
Maybe I am also just dumb? In any case, it never works out.
In any case, after setting up the starter, this is how it looked:
After feeding it a teaspoon of ginger and a teaspoon of sugar every day, everything started looking as it should around day 3.
I repeated until day 5 or so and then put it in the fridge as vaguely indicated in the recipe.
This would allow me to just feed it once a week because the yeast would go partially dormant at low temperatures.
And now about the exciting part! The ginger beer! I bought the swing top bottles and followed the instructions precisely.
And I have to say it did not look bad at this point!
And then everything basically stopped... No pressure building up, no signs of life apart from excruciatingly slowly building up sediment (which is supposed to be a good sign) and a few very small bubbles on the bottle walls.
No satisfying popping when "burping" the sodas. Just confusion.
I waited for more than 5 days, but frustration caught up and I tipped it down the kitchen sink.
Did I do something wrong? Probably.
I even asked ChatGPT what the issue could have been.
So here is my diagnosis:
- Too little food when preparing the Ginger Bug starter:
I fed it one teaspoon ginger and sugar respectively daily, but it should have been a tablespoon. It is possible the yeast did not have enough sustenance available to form a strong culture in the limited time span I gave it outside of the fridge. - Slightly off measurements?
I used European tea- and tablespoons and when a cup was needed I used an English teacup, which is possibly too small. - The yeast was dormant when in the fridge and I used the starter directly to prepare the soda.
The recommendation online seems to be to leave it outside for a few hours during the weekly feeding, and generally "waking it up" before preparing soda.
I guess the yeast count was just too small and it did not ramp up fast enough. - I used water from the sink and not mineral bottled water.
While I think it should be fine, something in the water here could have halted the development of the yeast. - Other contaminants
I did not go through the effort of sterilizing all bottles and utensils.
While mold never formed visibly, who knows what other life forms the yeast had to compete with in this primordial soup?
There would have been a possibility to try reviving the Ginger Bug, but I decided to start from zero.
I have now bought American standardized measuring cups and spoons and have set up a new Ginger Bug starter.
I will post an update if this one goes well! Wish me luck!