So let's start with a ginger beer postmortem.

First of all, let's get this out of the way. It never really carbonated.

To be fair it did a bit. It's got a little bit of carbonation you can feel when you drink it, and there are subtle bubbles on the glass. But no head like I was led to expect.  That said, it did ferment, and noticeably so. Over the two weeks plus a day it's been sitting at room temperature, the taste has changed considerably.  I was hoping that the changes would include some kind of CO2, but here we are.

I think it tasted better in the first few days, if we're being honest. Right now at the 15-day mark, it's gotten more sour. Not unpleasant, but more than I'd expect out of a ginger beer. I think putting it in the fridge after about day 4 or 5 would have been the sensible move, but I wanted to see if it would carbonate more.  It didn't, sad to say.

I think what I did wrong first of all, was add the yeast too warm. My old thermometer was unreliable at best, and I really underestimated how long it would take for four litres of liquid to cool to room temperature. So impatience got the best of me, when it would have been smarter just to let the liquid sit overnight.  I'm also questioning the use of tap water, although here in Ottawa I think it's a minor concern. The bottle-your-own wine/beer place I go to (or normally do when there's no pandemic) uses tap water and they have no issues. Just to be safe though, I'll try bottled water next time. It's pretty cheap, so no worries there. Thirdly, and this might just be me over-thinking it, I used a pretty young starter. My raisin yeast hadn't been poured off and fed much at that point, so maybe it hadn't built up strength yet.  It's pretty potent and wine-smelling now though, so I imagine it'll be fine. Just to be safe though, and for the sake of experimentation, I've started a batch of ginger bug.

So with that in mind, after I get to picking up ingredients the day after tomorrow I'll be trying a batch of ginger beer, this time with bottled water, ginger bug starter that's been poured off and fed at least once, and letting the mixture sit until the next day after simmering. We'll see if that has an effect.

I'll also do the same with orange soda, using the raisin starter. Although it's easier to cool down as you only boil a small part of the mixture before adding ice and the rest of the water. So the "next day" step shouldn't matter.

Got a couple other projects on the go, too. Here's an update:

Honey-Fermented Ginger

Turning out marvellous. The honey is much "looser" in consistency than it was, and it's picked up a lot of flavour from the ginger.  I meant to drizzle a little on pizza last week, but I kinda forgot. Next time.

I did add a little to frozen peas before putting them in the microwave, and that was seriously the right move. Only used maybe a teaspoon, but had a noticeably positive effect. i imagine the same would be true of fresh carrots too. They always pair well with honey.

Ginger Bug

Ginger bug, for those who don't know the term, is essentially the same as the raisin-based yeast starter I've been working with so far. Except, obviously, it uses chopped ginger to grow the yeast from rather than fruit. It's the usual starter you see in naturally carbonated soda recipes, and the ginger beer recipe uses it as well. So with that in mind, and since I had loads of ginger left over, I gave it a try.

And killed it. My mistake really. I foolishly took "stir or shake" as "put the lid on and shake the shit out of it" on day 4 of the five-day process, and pretty much overoxygenated the batch. Ginger started sinking, bubbles disappeared from the surface, it was a whole thing.

So I started again, and now I'm on day 3 for the second time. I don't have much ginger left so I'm using 20g a day instead of 25g, but I don't think it makes that much difference. I've got clearly visible bubbles, lots of floating ginger, the whole bit. If I don't screw it up tomorrow, I'll be laughing I think.

Cranberry Wine

Now here's an interesting journey. Very simple setup, just store-bought cranberry juice, white sugar and raisin starter in the same container the juice came in. Nothing fancy, mixed that up on the 27th of April.

Didn't do much of anything at first, which seemed consistent with what I'd been told about wild yeast taking longer to get going. I started with the "leave the top slightly ajar" method, and after a couple of days I switched to "leave the top tightly closed, but bleed off the CO2 once a day". That seemed to work better, and I heard a little hiss each time, although there was only a little evidence of  bubbles on the surface.

Then on May 2, five days after I started fermenting, I managed to get to the local brew store and picked up a few vapour locks with rubber bungs big enough for my juice bottle. And right away that made a difference. I was seeing a fine border of bubbles all around the edge by that evening, and next morning it was practically fizzing inside the bottle. A reaction that's still going strong almost a week later. I've got high hopes! 

I also got a hydrometer, but since I wasn't able to take a sample before the wine started fermenting, there's no way I can test for alcohol content once it's done. But eh, there'll definitely be some, so it's all good. That's kitchen sink fermenting for you, right?

Future plans

I already mentioned a second run at ginger beer and orange soda, so that's covered. I'll be grocery shopping in a couple of days, so I intend to get two more big bottles of juice, and ferment them as well. One with proper wine yeast, and one with a teaspoon of bread yeast, just to see what happens. The conventional wisdom is that it'll be terrible, but I see a lot of folks doing stuff with bread yeast that they seem plenty satisfied with, so why not? That's the spirit of adventure!

I've also got a yen for some Hawaiian pizza, but the trouble is I end up with a lot of leftover pineapple. So why not get a couple extra tins and ferment them?  Seems simple enough, the fruit will be soft enough to start with so no need to macerate or anything. Just dump it directly into the bottle, add sugar, water and yeast, and we're off to the races! I'll keep this diary informed of how that nonsense comes along.