Kitchen Magic!
Jul. 8th, 2010 10:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sakon76A new batch of ginger beer is lacto-fermenting merrily on my kitchen counter! I've put the solids (minced ginger and ginger powder) back in the jar and added another cup and a half of filtered water to keep the starter going since I have a bee in my bonnet about locating the ingredients I don't yet have and trying to do lacto-fermented root beer in a week or two, as I've finally found a couple recipe variants.
For those whom the term "lacto-fermented" inspires terror and fear when it comes to something you put in your mouth and swallow... it's yeast. Natural yeast, like that in sourdough, that does not come out of a jar. Perfectly safe. Pickles and sauerkraut are also lacto-fermented. What the yeasts do in the case of the ginger beer I make is go "nomnomnom" on the sugar in the recipe, converting it to gas. The gas, trapped in the bottle by a very tightly fastened lid, carbonates the drink. I make ginger beer in plastic bottles because it has a reputation for being volatile. Once the pressure has built up to a certain point where the bottle is hard and for some of them the bottom pops out, I put it in the fridge and it's ready to drink. I hear that root beer is less volatile so it can safely be made in glass bottles and still be carbonated.
So for a little bit of patience and a little bit of chemistry, I get delicious, easily homemade soda that contains no high fructose corn syrup and less sugar than you'd think since the yeast is busy eating it up.
For those whom the term "lacto-fermented" inspires terror and fear when it comes to something you put in your mouth and swallow... it's yeast. Natural yeast, like that in sourdough, that does not come out of a jar. Perfectly safe. Pickles and sauerkraut are also lacto-fermented. What the yeasts do in the case of the ginger beer I make is go "nomnomnom" on the sugar in the recipe, converting it to gas. The gas, trapped in the bottle by a very tightly fastened lid, carbonates the drink. I make ginger beer in plastic bottles because it has a reputation for being volatile. Once the pressure has built up to a certain point where the bottle is hard and for some of them the bottom pops out, I put it in the fridge and it's ready to drink. I hear that root beer is less volatile so it can safely be made in glass bottles and still be carbonated.
So for a little bit of patience and a little bit of chemistry, I get delicious, easily homemade soda that contains no high fructose corn syrup and less sugar than you'd think since the yeast is busy eating it up.
