Please be mindful that cultured soda and cider becomes naturally carbonated. If you place it in a bottle, jar, or other container with a lid, then the contents can be under high pressure, which will increase with additional fermentation. In extreme cases, bottles can explode. And drinks certainly can burst out the top of these vessels when opened. Check your soda fermentation often, do not shake contents, and use plastic bottles if you are worried about breaking glass. Please be careful and stay safe!
Most of us like fizzy drinks. Root beer, cola, ginger ale, and sparkling apple cider: what do these drinks have in common? All are sweet, sparkling beverages. And traditionally, all of them were brewed with probiotic cultures that provide a natural source of effervescent bubbles. When you make them at home, these drinks retain far more goodness than your average soda pop. Imagine being able to call your soda pop a health food!
Yes, this is an alternate universe with no high fructose corn syrup or pumped in CO2 bubbles. Here, we enjoy sodas and ciders that are low in sugar, rich in protein and B vitamins, teeming with rich probiotics and enzymes, and naturally sparkling as a result of fermentation. Plus, you can add whatever flavors and healthful herbs you want, making a custom soda to suit your tastes. If you’ve never tried cultured cranberry cider, almond sarsaparilla, or lavender lemon soda, you’re in for a treat. This chapter will cover a few basic recipes, and from there, you can create your own.
You can brew ciders and sodas using any of the cultures we have covered. Kefir grains, a kombucha SCOBY, a ginger beer plant, or even yogurt whey will get the job done.
My first choice of a culture for soda or cider is water kefir grains (tibicos). Water kefir grains, which are adapted to culturing sugary water, will work quickest and have the best chance of maintaining a stable culture over time (assuming you plan to keep these grains after your first ferment). These grains can ferment a beverage in as little as 1–2 days, while a kombucha SCOBY will take up to 1–2 weeks.
Natural Ciders (Probiotic, Fermented Juices)
Making ciders is extremely simple. Begin with a bottle of your favorite juice (apple, grape, berry, etc.). Just open the bottle of juice and pour some into a jar for the fermentation. Then add your culture, which could be a kombucha SCOBY or a tablespoon or two of kefir grains, ginger beer plant, or yogurt whey. Then cover the bottle or jar loosely with the lid or cover it with a towel or cheesecloth, holding the latter in place with a rubber band. Leave the cultured juice out of direct light where it can remain still for a few days.
Depending on the temperature and the strength of the culture you used, your cider can ferment in just a day or two (though a kombucha culture will take longer). Remain on the lookout for little air bubbles forming and feel free to taste a bit whenever you want to test it. Near the beginning, it will be sweet from the sugars in the juice, and as it ferments, the sweetness will turn sour from the conversion of sugars to acids. When you like the taste, go ahead and drink it, saving the rest in the refrigerator to enjoy over the next few days. Here is a quick explanation of the different levels of flavor/body and how to achieve them:
Sweet and Mild
The juice begins with a sweet and mild flavor, so if you want to culture this lightly and get very little fermented taste, then simply drink it within the first day or two.
Mildly Fermented
To achieve this taste, let it go a little longer. This may be 2–3 days with kefir grains and a bit longer with other cultures. Taste it once a day until it has the fermented flavor you like, but still a bit of sweetness.
Strongly Fermented
Let it go an extra day or two for the most concentrated probiotic benefits. This is the strong, sour taste of a heavily fermented beverage, and it will start to get quite yeasty as these organisms begin to dominate. Your cider will have a bit of alcohol (probably under 1 percent) and should have the effervescence of a little natural carbonation.
Sweet and Sour
It’s cider, not medicine! To get the full probiotic benefits of complete fermentation, plus the sweetness that makes it enjoyable, just take out a few ounces of juice at the beginning and save this in the refrigerator. Ferment the remainder, and once this is nice and sour, strain out any kefir grains or SCOBY, and then mix in the reserved juice. Alternatively, you can add a pinch of sugar or a spoonful of honey, maple syrup, or molasses at the end. Voila, sweet and sour, the best of both worlds!
Fizzy Bottling
If your cider is not fizzy enough, try bottling it for a secondary fermentation like we do with the sodas. Take a plastic bottle with a tight-fitting lid, such as a soda or water bottle. (You can use a glass jar or bottle also, but it is easiest to check the air pressure in a plastic vessel.) Fill it halfway with the fermented cider and top this off with some additional juice. Tighten the lid and leave this at room temperature to continue fermenting. It probably will be ready in 24 hours, but check it within 12 hours. If you used a plastic bottle, then checking it is as simple as squeezing the sides of the bottle. If it has really puffed out so that squeezing is difficult, it is probably ready. Open with caution; you could have a bomb in your hands! Unless you’ve shaken the bottle, it really should not explode on you, but there will be a release of air pressure as there is when opening any soda bottle. Taste and decide if it’s fizzy enough for you. If not, tighten the lid and give it another 12 hours or so.
Pumpkin Jack-O-Cider
Makes varying quantities (depending on size of pumpkin)
Making cider in a pumpkin? What a cool idea! Here is a great way to use an extra pumpkin, enjoying its terrific flavors and nutrition. I recommend using the tibicos or yogurt whey as cultures, since you need to make this ferment quickly and beat the mold by a couple of days. The cider is delicious. Sorry, you cannot carve a face on this one or put a candle inside! Well, maybe after you drink it …
• 1 pumpkin
• Enough apple juice to nearly fill the pumpkin
• 2 tablespoons kefir grains or yogurt whey
• Optional: Cinnamon stick, 1-inch piece of peeled ginger, or dash of pumpkin pie spice mix
First, use a large knife to cut the top off a pumpkin. Then remove the seeds with a large spoon, just like you do when making a jack-o-lantern. Once the seeds are out, use the spoon to gently scrape the inside edge, loosening a little of the pumpkin meat and leaving this at the bottom. Next, fill the pumpkin nearly to the top with apple juice and add some tibicos grains or yogurt whey as a culture, plus optional spices, and put the top back on loosely. Within 2-3 days, you will have a very unique, flavorful, and healthy cider. Please make sure you remove the cider and drink or bottle it before the pumpkin starts to mold, since the mold may begin in less than a week.
Saving Your Cider Culture
When you pour off the juice, you can do so with a strainer to catch any kefir grains, ginger beer plant, or SCOBY. A kombucha SCOBY often floats in the liquid, so another way to catch it is to grab it with tongs. These solid cultures can be saved for the next fermentation project. Yogurt whey or dried cultures will dissolve in the juice, so you can just drink it all or save a few ounces to mix with the next batch.
Air Locks Are Very Useful
Home brewing supply stores sell a cheap device called an air lock (sometimes known as a water lock or pressure lock). This is a plastic valve with a rubber gasket that fits over the mouth of a bottle. There are some different styles (three-piece, S-shape, and bubble locks), but they work the same way. You mount the device on the bottle that contains your brew, often with the help of a rubber bottle stopper (bung) that has a hole to fit the lock, then you fill this lock with a small amount of water or other fluid. Some people use a sterile alcohol like vodka. The liquid stays in the lock, enabling CO2 to escape as the drink ferments, while preventing any outside air, dust, mold spores, or insects from getting into the brew.
Air locks are optional. A loose-fitting lid will work fine also. But air locks make your job easier and help prevent any contamination. At the time of writing this book, a set of three air locks is about the same price as a sandwich. I usually buy mine on Amazon, but you can also find these locks at some health food stores as well as any home brewing supply store.
Homemade Sodas
Home brewed sodas are really a treat. They are much, much healthier than any high fructose, artificially flavored, chemically preserved, and unnaturally carbonated soda on the market. Plus, making your own soda gives you the freedom to add any flavor you like. If you like root beer, cherry cola, ginger ale, cream soda, sarsaparilla, or lemon-lime, you can make it at home. You can also make lavender, pumpkin pie, mandarin orange, molasses, and a whole lot of other soda flavors that are not available in stores.
There are three steps to making your own natural soda. First, you will brew up the fermented base, which can be either kombucha, water kefir, rejuvelac, or ginger beer. Alternatively, you can just use brewer’s yeast or baker’s yeast. Of course, these single culture yeasts do not have the probiotic benefits of the traditional cultures described in this book.
Second, you will add some flavoring to this fermented base. Juices, fruit syrups, and herbal extracts are good flavoring candidates. Below the soda recipe that follows, you will find a list of flavoring sources, which include fruit syrups and juices, extracts of herbs and spices, and ready-made natural flavoring extracts such as cherry cola or cream soda flavoring. Third, you have the option to conduct a secondary ferment to add some carbonation and finish off the bottling of your soda. Here is the process.
Naturally Cultured Soda
(Recipes for soda syrups follow this recipe)
This recipe makes slightly more than one quart. In addition to the materials and ingredients needed to make water kefir, kombucha, rejuvelac, or ginger beer (which are explained in the chapters covering each of these drinks), you also will need some plastic bottles or jars with tight-fitting lids. Soda or water bottles with screw top lids work well. It is easier to check the inside pressure of plastic bottles by squeezing them, but you could use glass bottles or Mason jars and just take a small risk that they might burst. If you use extracts for flavoring and still want to do a secondary ferment, then you should also have some extra plain-tasting fruit juice (such as apple juice), fruit syrup, or maple syrup ready to add to each bottle.
Ingredients:
• 1 quart of fermented base, such as water kefir, kombucha, rejuvelac, or ginger beer
• ½ cup soda syrup (or other syrup flavoring, per its label directions)
• Extra juice, maple syrup, or fruit syrup, to taste
Process:
• Make a batch of water kefir, ginger beer, kombucha, or rejuvelac as your fermented base for the soda. Please refer to the directions in the separate chapters on each of these. Bear in mind that kombucha will be the slowest among them, while the others are all pretty fast cultures.
• Once you have made the base (following the directions in the appropriate chapter), pour it into each of the bottles or jars. Leave enough room for the fruit juice/syrup and any flavoring you wish to add.
• Put the lids on tightly. You can leave the soda bottles out and check them every few hours or put them in the refrigerator, where they will keep fermenting more slowly. Kombucha soda should be left out.
• Check your sodas by squeezing the sides of the plastic bottles. Once they are firm with the expanded pressure from the ferment, open them and taste. If you use glass bottles or jars, you will need to open them to check the fermentation. Beware of the pressure inside, which will release when you open the bottle. Once you taste the soda, only you will know when it is ready. If should be nicely fermented and effervescently carbonated, yet still sweet enough for you. If it’s not strong enough, put the lid back on and let it ferment a few more hours. If it’s too sour, add a little more of your juice or syrup.
• Drink it and enjoy! Even the kids should love it!
Soda Flavoring Sources
Fruit Syrup: Any fruit or berry can be made into a fruit syrup, which combines with the fermented base to make a great soda. Soft fruits such as berries, grapes, peaches, apricots, cherries, plums, figs, and mangoes make particularly good syrups. Fresh fruit is best, but you can rehydrate dried fruit to make an effective syrup as well.
Take about two pounds of your favorite fruit, wash it, and chop it (except for berries and small fruit, which do not need to be chopped). Remove the pits from any stone fruit (like peaches, plums, cherries, and apricots) you use. Do not worry about the seeds in grapes or berries, since the syrup will be strained later. If the fruit you use is purely sweet and does not have any tartness to it, you can add some lemon or lime juice to balance this if you wish.
Put the fruit in a pan, adding 1 cup of water and 1 cup of sugar. Cook the fruit on medium-high heat, stirring it regularly and adding more water as needed to prevent sticking and burning. After 15–20 minutes, the mixture should look like a soupy jam. If any chunks remain, try to mash them in.
Let the fruit mixture cool, then strain it into a bowl or container. This is your fruit syrup, which can flavor any soda. If you have a lot of it, you can store it in a bottle or jar in the refrigerator for a few days. For longer storage, put it in the freezer in a freezer-safe container. You can also follow a standard canning procedure used for jam, preserving the syrup in jars for whenever you need it.
Ginger Syrup for Ginger Ale: You probably will not need as much of this to get the flavor you want. Nevertheless, to make a great ginger ale, follow the directions above for making a fruit syrup, using fresh ginger root instead. Peel it, chop it, and boil it with some water and sugar to make a strong, tasty, healthful soda flavoring.
Fruit Juices: Juices can be used to flavor sodas as well. Grape, apple, and cranberry juices are good bets, and you can experiment with any others you like. In general, the more intense flavors are best. For example, dark purple grape juice has a great flavor, while some of the transparent, filtered apple juices just taste like sugar and water. Then again, there are really good apple juices that have full flavor as well.
Extracts of Herbs and Spices: Mint, lavender, and chamomile are three kinds of herbs that make nice flavor additions in any soda. Then there are spices such as cinnamon, cloves, allspice, and curry, which might make interesting additions to a beverage. Please see the last section of this book for Lavender Soda and Pineapple Tapache recipes.
There are several different ways to get herbs and spices into your drinks. You can put a cinnamon stick in for a couple of minutes. You can boil fresh or dried herbs like mint or lavender into any fruit syrup, or skip the fruit and just boil the herbs in sugar water to make herb syrup. Another option is to use herb tea bags of mint and chamomile for an herbal infusion. If you steep them in boiling water for a while, the tea water can be used to make syrup or simply added to the soda with as much sweetener as you want.
Ready-Made Flavoring Extracts: You probably have vanilla extract in your cupboard already. Next to the vanilla in supermarkets you can usually find almond, peppermint, and coconut extracts. Since homemade sodas (combining fizzy water with syrups) have become popular in recent years, there are more soda extracts available than ever before. Check online merchants (like those mentioned in the appendix) if you cannot find what you want locally.
Here are recipes for several delicious soda syrups.
Making Soda Syrups and Soda Pop
To make soda syrup, combine all ingredients, stir well, taste, and adjust sweetness as needed. Many of the herbal syrups need to be cooked first in order to extract the flavors, while some fruit syrups can be made raw. Once finished, you can use the syrup immediately or store in the refrigerator in a container.
To make soda pop, add ¼ cup to ½ cup soda syrup to 2 cups of kombucha or water kefir. Then place this mixed base + syrup in a bottle, jar, or container with a very tight-fitting lid. Leave a little room on top. Cover and let it ferment at room temperature or in the refrigerator. Check room temperature soda every few hours, tasting until your soda has the right level of carbonation or effervescence. Refrigerated soda may take 1–3 days to reach the right stage, but it can happen in less than one day also, so check it regularly.
If it tastes too sour by this point, then add a little more soda syrup, maple syrup, or sugar to the top of each bottle/jar/container before consuming.
Lemon-Lime Syrup
This gives your soda an intense citrus flavor. If you prefer a sweeter or milder soda, then increase the sugar or use less syrup. Use any ratio of lemons to limes, or even just one kind of fruit, if you prefer.
• 1–2 lemons, juice and zest
• 4 limes, juice and zest
• 1 cup water
• 1 cup sugar
Combine all ingredients. Use it raw.
Cherry Almond Syrup
• 2 cups cherries, fresh or frozen
• 1 cup water
• Sugar (½ cup for sour cherries, ¼ cup for sweet cherries)
• 2 teaspoons almond extract
This one you need to boil for 15 minutes, blend or mash the cherries, and strain. If you prefer to keep the cherries raw, then freeze them first, thaw, blend, and strain the purée. Also for a raw version, boil a little of the water and stir in the almond extract; then let the water cool. That way, any alcohol is removed that might interfere with the culture.
Concord Grape Syrup
Make your own fresh juice from some flavorful grapes (such as Concords) or buy a bottle of grape juice.
• 2 cups grape juice
• 1 tablespoon lemon zest
• ½ cup sugar (or less if grape juice is very sweet)
Combine all ingredients. Use it raw.
Maple Cinnamon Syrup
• 2 cups maple syrup
• 2 cinnamon sticks
Boil maple syrup in a small pan. Add cinnamon sticks while syrup is hot. Let it sit for 1 hour.
Mint Syrup
• 1 cup mint leaves
• ½ cup sugar
• 1½ cups water
Cook on medium heat, turn off heat, and then let it sit for 1 hour.
Licorice Syrup
• 2 cups water
• ¼ cup dried licorice root, chopped
• ½ cup sugar
Cook on medium heat for 15 minutes, turn off heat, and then let it sit for 1 hour.
Raspberry Rhubarb Syrup
• 2½ cups raspberries
• 2 large rhubarb stalks, chopped
• 2 cups water
• 1–2 cups sugar
Bring water to a boil, add rhubarb, then simmer on medium heat for 15 minutes. Add raspberries and simmer for 15 minutes more, then cool and strain.
Chai Spiced Syrup
• 2 cups water
• ¼-inch piece of fresh ginger
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 2 cardamom pods
• 2 whole cloves
• Optional: ⅛ teaspoon black peppercorns
Bring to boil and simmer for 15 minutes. Cool, strain out spices, and serve.
Lavender Syrup
• 1 cup water
• ½ cup sugar
• ¼ cup dried lavender
Bring to a boil, simmer on medium heat for 15 minutes, then cool and strain out lavender.
Cola Syrup
This is adapted from a recipe by chef Lorraine Elliott, author of Not Quite Nigella. It is a simplified version of the very complex formulas of well-known commercial colas. And this one tastes a little more natural! I substituted lemon juice for the citric acid, but since lemons vary in acidity, you may want to taste this and adjust the lemon juice to fit your taste preference. Don’t forget that your soda base (kombucha or water kefir) will be sour also, so if the syrup ends up on the sweet and mild side, that might be fine.
• 2 cups water
• 2 cups brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons maple syrup
• Zest of 1 lemon, 1 lime, and 1 large orange (very finely grated)
• 2 teaspoons coriander seeds, crushed in mortar and pestle
• 1½ teaspoons dried lavender
• 4 sections of a whole star anise
• 1 vanilla pod, split
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1 teaspoon fresh ginger, finely minced
• 2–3 teaspoons lemon juice
Place all ingredients in a medium-sized pot. Simmer for 20 minutes. Cool and strain out the herbs.
