Making ginger ale

[Marlet]

I have a couple recipes I want to try out (as gifts for Christmas). All the ones I have found however say to drink within 1-2 weeks after initial fermentation period (usually 2-3 days). Does anyone know why that is? I want to get some made up and allow for a good fermentation for some kick. 2-3 days doesn't seem to be enough. I also can't guarentee it'll be drank in that time frame. I don't want to give a weakly flavored drink that is crap after a week you know?

Anyone do their own ginger ale (NOT beer....I have recipes for that as well and these cannot be alcoholic) that has a long shelf life and fermentation?

(I understand that fermentation by default tends to bring out some alcohol content, the recipes I have are more for the ginger flavor...any yeast is added after that initial period.)

[cristeen]

I really don't recommend doing what you're thinking of doing.

Fermentation in a soda happens fast and furious, particularly during warm weather. You ferment for a couple days, and then it MUST be refrigerated or you're going to have exploding bottles on hand (trust me when I say this is not fun to clean up - sugar and glass everywhere!). Even then, it needs to be drunk fairly quickly, because the refrigeration only slows down the fermentation, it doesn't stop it.

To give you an example, my last batch of "root beer" - I fermented at room temperature in the bottles for 3 days. Popped them into the refrigerator and once cold popped one open ... looked like Old Faithful (always open over a sink for this reason). By the time it had finished geysering, the bottle was about 3/4 empty. So now I know that with that particular recipe, I need to ferment for less time to prevent the geysering. And in the meantime I just open this batch over a sink with a glass handy to catch the overflow.

I really recommend you read up on soda fermentation - this is a pretty good book on the subject - although I wasn't impressed with the ginger ale recipe I tried, the information on the basics and the variety of recipes is excellent.

I've learned to not make batches larger than a gallon at a time... that gives me about 8 or 9 - 12oz bottles, which is a reasonable number to fit into the fridge. Unless we're planning a party, we can neither store nor drink much more than that before it gets over carbonated.

Oh, and I'll also say that in homemade sodas, flavor is not developed over time. What you put into the bottle is what you get out for the most part. The carbonation fermentation actually changes the flavor very little, so if it doesn't taste great before you pitch the yeast, then it's not going to taste great after, either.

HTH

[Marlet]

Good to know! I figured I'd need to make it closer to the time I was giving it but didn't realize it was so....tempermental.

Off to see if my library has that book.