How to Make NATURAL SODA using Ginger Bug (Sprite, Fanta & More!)

There's absolutely no better feeling than that first pop. That is the sweet sound of the magic of fermentation. Letting you know that you just made a fizzy homemade soda. And the best part is, you know exactly what went into it. By the end of this video, you'll have the power to go out and ferment anything you want into soda. It's all thanks to one key ingredient. Ginger. I'll show you the bare bones ingredients and stuff needed, as well as a bunch of experiments and tests I did to get near flawless results every time. So if you're as thirsty as I am watching this, then let's not waste any time and dive into how to make delicious ginger bug sodas. Wait, ginger bug? No, not that type of bug. Ginger bug is basically a collection of healthy bacteria and yeast that drive fermentation. Specifically, this is a lacto-fermentation. And those little bugs are found in and on ginger root. They consume sugars and are probiotics. They can have all kinds of health benefits, like maintaining a healthy gut microbiome, improving digestion, and even boosting immune function. But I'm not a doctor. I just like the fizzy stuff. You can think of ginger bug like a sourdough starter. It's something you'll need to feed and protect with your life. But in my opinion, it's way easier to start and maintain than a sourdough starter. And it only takes three ingredients. Ginger. Preferably organic, as big produce tends to spray non-organic foods with things to prevent bacteria growth, which can make this process harder for you. But I have used non-organic, and it works if that's all you can find. Water. Like many fermentations, it's best not to use tap water unless you know exactly what's in your water. Some cities in the U.S. treat water with chemicals to prevent bacteria growth. So go with filtered, spring, or even distilled. And lastly, sugar. There really is no fermentation without sugar. Everything you've ever ate or drank that went through fermentation had some form of natural sugar in it. It doesn't really matter what you use for this, but the simplest option is plain white sugar. It's easily fermented and easily available for cheap. But if you prefer honey, agave, or even coconut sugar, be my guest. Just don't use sweeteners like Stevia or Splenda. Those are not real sugars, so they will not ferment. But if you find your final ferments are not sweet enough, you can always add those for an extra boost of sweetness. All right, confession time. I've made a bunch of ginger sodas on this channel before. Like fermented lemonade, ginger beer, and even root beer. And for all those, I used my homemade ginger bug. But unfortunately, I left my ginger bug unfed and unloved for far too long. And it has since gone on to ginger bug heaven. R.I.P. buddy. Thanks for the good memories. But the good news is, I get to start a new one with you. So let me show you how it's done. Start by chopping up 10 grams of ginger, skins and all. But make sure you wash it first. Don't worry, there's still plenty of good bacteria and yeast in there, even after a wash. So don't be nasty. Add it to a mason jar. I like to use mason jars because it has a lid, but you can use whatever you got. Then add in 10 grams of sugar. I'm just using the white stuff. Lastly, add in 250 milliliters of filtered water. I like to seal on the lid and give it a good shake to make sure the sugar is well mixed. I then loosen the lid so it's just barely on. Or if you don't have a lid, use a napkin and a rubber band. This helps keep the actual bugs out, like flies, but also allows the fermentation to expel gas out. As you'll see later, fermentation not only creates more complex flavors, but it also creates CO2. This is what makes soda fizzy. But as fermentation is just getting started in the ginger bug, we don't want to seal it down and cause any explosions. Now for the next three to five days, you'll need to repeat those last two steps. Adding 10 grams each of chopped ginger and sugar, mixing it up, and letting it sit on your counter. At first it may seem like nothing happens, but eventually you'll start to see some foaming happening at the top. And when it looks very foamy, something like this, that's when you know your ginger bug is ready to start making soda. This is where the road forks a bit. On one side is the easy road, one where you'll do as little as work as possible, and the results are good and consistent, but you are taking some shortcuts. And then there's the harder road. It has more twists and turns, but the results are more refined and tweaked to your taste preference. And in the end, you're given a more natural final product. Before venturing onto the road less traveled, let's take the easy street, so you can see just how dead simple it is to make soda. All it takes is some store-bought juice. Almost any juice will do, but for the best results, ideally you're using 100% juice, and it's free of preservatives. If you see words like sorbate, sulfite, or benzoate on your juice, it won't work. Those will prevent fermentation from happening. Other than that, the world is your oyster. Pineapple juice? Yup. Orange? Oh yeah. Peach cranberry? You bet. Tomato juice? Sure, but why? For today, I'll just be using some Welch's grape juice, because I love me some grape drink. It's grape soda. Now let's real quick talk about bottles. I've experimented and tested a bunch of bottles, from small to big, clear to brown, plastic to glass, and I landed on these specific bottles for a few reasons. One, they're fermentation-grade, meaning they hold pressure. Many glass bottles are not fermentation-grade, especially decorative or organization-specific bottles. That not only means they could potentially lead to exploding bottles if they over-pressurize, but they could also not hold pressure at all. I found that out the hard way on some early test batches with these bottles. Nothing. Two, these are large. One liter or about 33 ounces, which means you don't have to worry about cleaning a bunch of small bottles. You can batch this a little bigger and have even more to enjoy throughout the week. And three, they're clear. There's something just aesthetic about clear glass. It lets you see what's going on inside and looks delicious. Plus, it helps you remember what you actually made. If the idea of a glass bottle bomb scares the crap out of you, then I have some suggestions. I would say swap out the glass for something like plastic. Specifically, this is PET, which is a food-safe and reusable bottle, and it's perfect for home fermentations. I'll actually leave a link in the description for all my favorite bottles, glass, or plastic, so you can make the right choice for you. All right, let's keep moving. Okay, with the bottles in hand, all you gotta do is add in some strained gingerbug. In these one liter bottles, I like to use about 100 milliliters of gingerbug. Lastly, fill up the rest with juice, leaving about a finger or two of headspace, and then seal it up. If you find that your juice is too sweet, you can always cut it with a little bit of water. It might take longer to ferment, but if you're watching your sugar intake, this is a good option. Once your bottle is sealed, set it on the counter for one to three days, depending on the temperature of your room and the vigor of your gingerbug. At room temp, around 70 degrees Fahrenheit or 21 degrees Celsius, and using a gingerbug with good foaming activity, like I showed before, two days should be perfect. The warmer your area is, the faster it might ferment. What about burping, you might be wondering. And no, I'm not referring to the feeling you get after the soda. I'm talking about releasing pressure from the bottle quickly, every so often during fermentation. This is said to help keep you from getting exploding bottles or overly fizzy drinks. To me, it really depends. But generally, I'd say it's a good idea to go ahead and burp after two days. This will also give you an idea of how fermentation is coming along. If it pops, then I'd say tomorrow's the day. But if you get nothing, then give it a couple more days. Or you might have a leak in the seal of your bottle. The benefit of using plastic is you'll feel the pressure build and the bottle will get hard. For plastic, no burping is needed as long as you keep an eye on that pressure. Whenever you decide it's ready, the next step is crucial. Put the bottle in the fridge overnight or for a few hours at least. If you've ever seen clips of people's bottles exploding everywhere, it's likely they skipped this step. You see, when carbonation is released from the warm liquids, it goes everywhere and does not hold onto your drink. So not only will it be all over your ceiling, but whatever's left will be flat. Cold temperatures help the CO2 dissolve into the soda and will keep it from frothing everywhere, as long as you didn't let it ferment too long in the previous step. But once it's chilled, it's finally time to pop the top, pour, and enjoy. And I absolutely love how it transformed this grape juice. To me, grape juice is just too sweet and the fermentation helps cut that a bit while also giving a lightness with the bubbles. Definitely an elevated version of the drink of my childhood. Simple, right? But if you prefer to go a bit more natural with ingredients and want to be a thousand percent sure of everything that you're adding to your sodas, it's time for the hard road. And I know I'm calling it hard, but it's really not as hard as so much as it's not as easy as adding juice to a bottle. We need to extract the flavors from the raw ingredients. So today I'm going to go for a Sprite slash 7-Up and an Orange Fanta, my ultimate favorite soda. Who loves orange soda? These took a few rounds of recipe tweaking, no thanks to those bottles that didn't seal. Here we go again. But eventually I landed in a great spot. I'll share the full recipe in the description. You can also use this as inspiration to make your own dream soda. Maybe add some herbs or spices to your favorite fruit and see what happens. Starting with the Sprite, I used two limes and two lemons. I then painstakingly zested each one. You can either use a paring knife if you got skills or a rasp if you're like me. The trick I found to make this easier is to bring the grater to the fruit, not the other way around. It just works a little faster, but it still took a long time. Once I collected all the zest, I added 120 grams of the sugar into the plastic tub and let it sit overnight. The sugars will help extract the oils from the zest. I also did the same for the Fanta recipe, which for that I used two oranges and two of these funky looking mandarins to help make it a bit more complex. And also one lime. I zested them all up and then added 100 grams of sugar into them. I left both zested sugar mixes out overnight and the next day, you can see just how much oil and flavor they extracted. For the Sprite version, I added water into the sugar zest mix and then strained out the zest and then topped up with the water till I was just under one liter. And for the Orange Fanta, I actually juiced the oranges and the mandarins right into the zest sugar mix. I then strained out the zest and added water up to about one liter, leaving room for about 100 milliliters of strained ginger bug for each of the ferments. Depending on the fruits that you use, you may need to add more sugar. For example, that's why I use a little more sugar with the Sprite one since I wasn't using the actual juice from the citrus. So just know that some less sweet fruits might need more sugar to give it that sweet soda flavor. So I then added the 100 grams of strained ginger bug into the bottle, followed by the juice, making sure to leave a little bit of headspace. I then left them on the counter for about four to five days. These took a little bit longer than the straight juice. Finally, I chucked them into the fridge overnight and the next day it was time to enjoy. And here they are. And as you can see, I have been enjoying them. They are really good. You can see that they kind of separate a little bit. So you have to give them a slight shake to get them back to fully incorporated. And if you can hear that, it's ready. So let's go ahead and give it a pour. First up, I'm going to do the Fanta. Let's hear if it gives a pop. Oh, there we go. Nice. OK, it didn't explode everywhere. That's good. Nice and fizzy. Good color. It's not like a bright orange, but it's very similar to how Fanta can be, especially in like Europe and Asia, which is my favorite Fanta, by the way. Let's give it a taste. Oh, yeah, that is good. This is honestly perfect. It turned out just how I wanted to. It's got the perfect amount of sweetness. It's got that nice fizziness and the flavor is super bright and citrusy and definitely orange. I think this is one you absolutely have to give a try. All right, let's try the Sprite version next. OK. Oh, a little fizz. Not as big as the other one. So it's not as fizzy, which can definitely happen. It can be something with the gingerbog. Maybe I didn't use enough. Or it could be something with the sugars. I know the sugars and juices can be a little bit more easy to ferment for the yeast. Or it could be something with the zest or the acidity using things like citrus. Citrus can have natural antimicrobial properties, so that could be inhibiting some yeast growth. But you know what happens. I'll just have to try it again. But let's see how this one tasted. Oh, man, that is. Wow. Oh, gosh, that is good. That's got a perfect amount of lemon and lime and it's got a good sweetness. There's a little bit of fizziness there, which is nice. It'll be great to see more, of course. But this is really good. It's like a natural Sprite, which is exactly what I was hoping for. One thing I didn't talk about any of these was the alcohol content. Since they are fermented, they technically do have alcohol, but probably more like 1% or even less, depending on how long you let it ferment. And if you're wondering on how long these things might last, I would say about one to two weeks. But it really depends. Even in the fridge, these are going to continue to ferment. So you want to keep an eye on them and maybe just burp them every like four days if you're not going to drink it right away, just to make sure you don't have any explosions. But if your versions turn out anywhere as good as these, then you won't have any problems finishing them up. If you want to keep your ginger soda making going, you'll need to continue feeding your ginger bug and replenish the water when it gets low. If you have too much ginger in your ginger bug, you can always strain that out. Really the liquid is where the magic is. And you can always take a break from feeding if you don't have plans to make any sodas in the coming days by putting it in the fridge. But I say just remember to take it out and feed it at least once every other week. But if you ever see anything black, green or fuzzy, it is unfortunately spoiled and it's time to dump and start again. The possibilities are endless. So now I want to know what kind of soda are you going to make first? And let me know what other kind of sodas you want to see me make. A Dr. Pepper soda? What about a matcha soda? Let me know. But until then, I hope you enjoyed this soda making video. And if you want to see me make a different kind of soda using a completely different technique, then check out this video and I'll see you over there. Cheers and happy brewing.