Healthy Soda Series: Probiotic, Homemade Root Beer

And so we have arrived at Root Beer in my series of probiotic sodas.

As I have mentioned before, I’m not the biggest fan of Root Beer - being European and all ... and that cough syrup thing!

However, I have found out that I just don’t like store bought Root Beer. The home made kind is a whole different ball game!

It’s real. It has depth and body. It has character! The flavors are round and compliment each other - not like cough syrup at all! Even to me!

So, much like the Cola, we will make the root beer syrup first and then we will add the syrup to the second ferment of the water kefir.

And this one does actually get to be as dark a color as the original version. But even so, it does not contain any gluten, as we are not using caramel color!

My starting point was a fabulous recipe by Hank Shaw and I adapted it to suit water kefir fermentation, and our taste buds!

Root Beer Syrup

Ingredients:

• 6 cups water
• 3 ounces dried sassafras roots
• 1/2 ounce dried burdock root
• 2 tsp of orange zest (optional) 
• 1 teaspoon whole coriander seeds
• 1 whole star anise
• 2 inches of a vanilla bean
• 3 Allspice berries (whole)
• 1 whole clove
• 1/4 cup dark molasses (not blackstrap)
• 2 drops wintergreen extract (do NOT replace with mint - it’s a different flavor altogether!)
• 5 cups organic evaporated cane sugar 

Preparation:

Put the sassafras and burdock roots, vanilla bean, coriander seeds, star anise, orange zest and clove in a heavy-bottomed 2 quart saucepan. Add  the water and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to low, place a lid on your saucepan and simmer for 15 minutes.

Add the molasses, stir, and return to a simmer for 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat, add the wintergreen extract, replace the lid and let the mixture cool to room temperature and sit for about 5 hours or overnight.

Line a fine mesh strainer with cheesecloth, place over a bowl or pot and pour the steeped infusion into it to strain. Do not press on the contents, but let the roots rest in the strainer for about 30 minutes so everything can drip out. 

Return the sassafras infusion to a pot and add the sugar to the pot. Bring the mixture to a boil one more time, reduce the heat to low and let it simmer for 5 minutes. Pour the hot syrup into mason jars, put on lids and let it cool to room temperature.

Refrigerate the syrup.

It will keep for a year in the refrigerator.

Second Ferment - Combining the water kefir and the syrup

4 cups of water kefir (finished the first ferment, grains strained out)
1/4 cup of root beer syrup (you can adjust the amount of syrup to your liking)

Mix the above ingredients, decant into flip top bottles and leave them on your kitchen counter at room temperature for 24 - 48 hrs.  If you have a warm kitchen and the carbonation is really building up, 18-24 hrs. may be enough.
Refrigerate you bottles.

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You can also use this syrup with carbonated water to make root beer, or if you have a really fizzy first ferment of the water kefir, forgo the second fermentation and drink it as is!
Personally, I like to get the second ferment in, as it does seem to add to rounding out all the flavors!

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Probiotic Soda: Ginger Ale

In the series of healthy, probiotic sodas, here is a really simple but-oh-so yummy one: Ginger Ale!

 

Water Kefir - First Ferment

4 cups of structured, Prill water or living water (or bottled water)

1/4 cup of organic evaporated cane sugar

10 organic raisins or so

1 organic lemon wedge (1/4 of a small lemon)

1.5 tbsp. water Kefir Grains

In a mason jar, combine sugar and water and stir with a non metal spoon to dissolve sugar partially . It doesn’t have to be dissolved all the way, the kefir grains will do the rest.

Add the kefir grains, lemon wedge and raisins.

Tighten lid on the jar and let the water kefir grains do their thing for 24 to 36 hours.

When all the raisins are at the top and are staying at the top or coming right back up when you move the jar, you’re kefir is ready.

Remove the raisins and lemon wedge, strain out the water kefir grains.

Rinse the kefir grains for our next batch.

Combining The Two - Second Ferment

4 cups of water kefir (grains strained out)

1/2 small organic lemon (you can reuse the one you had in the first ferment too)

1 1/2 inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled, chopped/grated or finely sliced

1.5  tbsp. organic evaporated cane sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla emulsion/extract

 

Combine all the above in a large jar, squeeze 1/4 of the lemon for juice, then add the lemon back in,  screw down the lid tight (it needs to be a tight lid as this will build quite some carbonation) and let it steep for 12 -18 hrs. You probably need to burp the liquid several times a day to release some of the carbonation build-up.

Strain the solids out and decant the ginger ale into flip top bottles. Refrigerate the ginger ale.

 

 

This recipe is very adjustable to your own tastes.

Use more ginger, use more vanilla, less of anything, use real vanilla, use extract, add something else - the possibilities are endless.

For example, my daughter’s favorite way is to add 2 tbsp. of fresh pineapple juice per bottle when I decant it. The gingery pineapple soda is delightful!

There will likely be a little sediment at the bottom of the bottles - that’s from the ginger and lemon. Don’t worry about that, it’s perfectly normal and you can drink it just fine!

 

Next up in the series of healthy “sodas” - probiotic, natural, gluten-free root beer!

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Healthy Sodas? Is that even possible? YES!

I have told you about our relatively new found love for water kefir before, but I have been experimenting since.

The kids and I are perfectly fine with juice based water kefirs, but my husband continues to be a bonified soda drinker, all be it with the soda fountain. He has given up the caffeine soda a couple of years ago, but his favorite drink continues to be coca cola, dr. pepper and root beer.

I have been on a mission to at the very least reduce his chemically based soda intake, so I have been experimenting with making a healthier form of “soft drink” to at least tempt him to try other things!

Since the base of the water kefir is relatively neutral, it really does lend itself to a variety of options. The Cola one is the most work intensive, but it is also the one that can be played with and adjusted to your personal preferences.

The initial ingredients I started to experiment with, were from a variety of websites and suggestions. Many of them included essential oils, but that didn’t work well in a water kefir application. So, I went with this recipe from the New York Times and adjusted it some!

Sounds quite spicy and more medicinal, doesn’t it?

I expected it to be somewhere between a Christmas cookie and a Root beer on the flavor scale. And I don’t really like Root beer all that much, even though the rest of my family loves it. Having been raised in Europe, Root beer tastes like cough syrup to me, conjuring images of being sick as a child. Not exactly that enjoyable, even though after all these years, I am starting to warm to it a little more!

But I know it’s a big thing in the USA! You even float ice cream in it and call it a treat! *shudders*

But I digress! Well, not entirely - I will also show you how to make natural, good-for-you water kefir that tastes like Root beer!  And this one does actually taste like the real thing!

Anyway, back to the Cola syrup!

Amazingly, some way, somehow, once the syrup is done, and fermented for that second time with the water kefir - it definitely reminds me of the flavor of ... Cola! 

Does it taste like Coca Cola/Pepsi?  Definitely not! It’s different!  It’s better! It’s homemade, with wholesome ingredients and no artificial anything added.

Since we are not using any kind of food coloring or caramel color, this syrup is a lot lighter in color than we are used to.

 

 

Cola Syrup

Grated zest of 2 medium organic oranges

Grated zest of 1 large organic lime

Grated zest of 1 large organic lemon

1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon nutmeg,  freshly grated

1 section of a star anise pod, crushed

1/2 teaspoon dried lavender flowers

1 1/2 teaspoons freshly grated ginger

1 one-and-a-half-inch piece vanilla bean, split

1/4 teaspoon organic citric acid (personally I prefer 1/2 tsp)

1 cup organic evaporated cane sugar

1/2 cup organic brown sugar

2 cups of water + 2 tbsp..

1. In a heavy pot over medium heat, bring 2 cups water to a simmer with the zests, cinnamon, nutmeg, star anise, lavender, ginger, vanilla and citric acid. Reduce the heat to low, cover and simmer gently for 20 minutes.

2. In a non-stick pan, bring 1 cup of organic evaporated cane sugar and 2 tbsp. water to a boil. Slowly caramelize the sugar, JUST until it turns a DARK brown. When it starts to smell ever so slightly burnt, but isn’t actually really burnt just yet, you’re there! Take it off the heat immediately and slowly and very carefully add it to the hot syrup, a little at the time, stirring constantly.

If you are not comfortable with handling all this boiling hot stuff, you can caramelize the sugar ahead of time, pour it onto a lightly greased sheet and let it cool. It will be like hard candy once it’s cooled and you can break it into pieces and add them to the boiling mixture, stirring to dissolve the sugar chards.

Then add the brown sugar and stir to dissolve.

 

Alternatively, you can forgo the whole caramelizing step all together and just add the sugars right to the water and spices. It will taste slightly different as the caramelization and the “almost burnt” sugar add a flavor note, but if you’re going for quick and easy, this is the way!

 

3. Line a sieve or colander with a double thickness of cheesecloth and place over a bowl. Pour the contents of the pot through the sieve. Carefully gather up the corners of the cheesecloth and twist the top to close. Use a spoon to press the bundle against the sieve, squeezing out all the flavorful syrup.

4. Stir the syrup and let cool. Transfer to containers with a lid and keep refrigerated.

 

 

 

Water Kefir - First Ferment

4 cups of structured, Prill water or living water (or bottled water)

1/4 cup of organic evaporated cane sugar

10 organic raisins or so

1 organic lemon wedge (1/4 of a small lemon)

1.5 tbsp. water Kefir Grains

 

In a mason jar, combine sugar and water and stir with a non metal spoon to dissolve sugar partially . It doesn’t have to be dissolved all the way, the kefir grains will do the rest.

Add the kefir grains, lemon wedge and raisins.

Tighten lid on the jar and let the water kefir grains do their thing for 24 to 36 hours.

When all the raisins are at the top and are staying at the top or coming right back up when you move the jar, you’re kefir is ready.

Remove the raisins and lemon wedge, strain out the water kefir grains.

Rinse the kefir grains for our next batch.

 

Combining The Two - Second Ferment

4 cups of water kefir (grains strained out)

1 cup of Cola Syrup

 

Combine the two and bottle in swing top bottles. Leave the bottles to ferment at room temperature for at least 24 hrs., burping them once or twice. Once you have achieved the desired level of fizziness, refrigerate the bottles.

 

And there you have it! A healthy probiotic drink, very reminiscent of Cola! And it has nothing artificial or chemical in it! And no gluten!

 

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Incidentally, if you don’t really care about the food color (gluten) and artificial flavor aspects and just want to make probiotic cola - this flavor concentrate makes a pretty mean cola soda that tastes a lot like store brand Cola!

 

To make it with the flavor concentrate, do the first ferment as described above.

For the second ferment, you will need:

 

4 cups strained water kefir

1 tsp cola extract (for a gluten free cola extract, try Lorann’s Cola Flavor Concentrate and use 1/4 tsp)

2 tbsp. organic evaporated cane sugar (More if you like it sweeter - the second ferment will feed on the sugar and some of the sweetness will go away, but you need at least 2 tbsp. to feed the ferment!)

 

Mix everything together in a jar/jug and stir to dissolve the sugar.

Pour into flip-top bottles and let ferment at room temperature for at least 24 hrs., burping them about once a day. Once you have achieved the desired level of fizziness, refrigerate the bottles.

 

Next up in the series of healthy “sodas” - Ginger Ale!

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Inexpensive Solutions To Home Fermentation

We love Kefir at our house! My kids have grown up with milk kefir and they would have it morning, noon and night if it was up to them!

But because I have been off Dairy since earlier this year, I branched out into Water Kefir a while back, as I still wanted to get all those good probiotics! And we have totally fallen in love with Water Kefir!

We all love it and we love experimenting with different flavors, different stages of fizziness, etc.

We generally have our Water Kefir in the evenings with dinner and the kids have become quite the connoisseurs, judging every new flavor as to it’s fizziness, ripeness, overall flavor profile and if we should have it again!

So, after a while of doing water kefir, I started looking into other home fermenting, especially with all the fruit and vegetable abundance summer brings with it!

{From left to right: Water Kefir Lemonade, Grape Water Kefir and in the back in the large bottle is some Blueberry Water Kefir. Then a half gallon jar of Water Kefir in the process of fermenting, two jars of fermenting peppers and other vegetables and a jar of lacto-fermented sauerkraut!}

The internet is full of fermenting recipes, ideas, descriptions of the benefits and last but by no means least, gadgets and contraptions that aid you in proper fermenting. All 0f it of course costs quite a bit of money, which I was not prepared to spend.

When you first start playing with it, you can do it with just regular mason jars, but once you do it on a regular basis, it really helps to have the proper equipment!

So, I went about rigging up my own!

It’s not all that hard. Since I use Mason Jars for just about anything anyway, I am of course using them for fermenting too.

The caps I am about to show you how to make rather quickly and inexpensively, run from $10 to almost double that on the internet and are basically exactly the same.

For my initial set-up I used what I already had on hand. Note that there should be no metal touching fermented food or drinks, so please always choose glass or BPA free plastic lids!

You will need Plastic Lids for Mason Jars or Tattler Lids (make sure they fit your jars - wide mouth or regular,) a 3-piece Airlock, 1/2 inch rubber grommet and a rubber gasket. Unless you’re using the Tattler lids, then you don’t need a gasket as that is already provided. You do however need one of the metal rings that come with a mason jar to tighten the finished lid down.

Since the  plastic lids for the mason jars are rather leaky and not air tight at all, we need to trim the rubber gasket so it fits inside the lid and seals it.

You only need to cut a few millimeters off around the outside, which is easily done with a pair of scissors.

Next you need to use a 1/2 inch spade bit and drill a hole in the middle of your lid.

Once you drilled your hole, place the rubber grommet in the hole and adjust so it sits properly. Next insert the airlock and fit the trimmed rubber gasket - and you’re done!

To use your airlock lid, pull off the little lid off the 3-piece airlock and fill it about 1/3 full of water. Place the lid back on and screw the entire lid on your fermenting jar.

For the Tattler Lids, you do the same thing as above and then tighten down the lid insert with the metal ring provided with your mason jar!

I usually use this lid for my first ferment with the water kefir grains.

Then I remove the floating raisins* (I keep them in a little container in the freezer and use them as probiotic, pre-soaked raisins in baking and smoothies,) strain out the kefir grains and the lemon (I squeeze the juice into the finished water kefir and use the rind like I would any other organic lemon rind.) 

*The raisins are there to feed the kefir grains as well as a good indicator as to when the kefir is done with the first ferment, as they all float to the top (and stay on top) when it’s ready! During fermenting time you often see some being pushed up to the top by the bubbles, but they sink back down to the bottom. Until it’s ready, then they stay on top!

I then bottle our water kefir with a little fruit juice (our favorites so far have been organic grape juice, blackberry, raspberry, pineapple and cranberry) in flip top bottles (check your local wine and beer brewing store for those, they tend to be less expensive locally,) leaving them out on the counter for another day, burping them once.

Then I place the in the refrigerator. We usually drink the water kefir within a day after it has been placed in the refrigerator, even though we have found that some flavors develop better if they are given an additional day in the refrigerator, like the water kefir lemonade and ginger ale!

If you want to be really adventurous, you can also make your own Pickl-It jars. You would be drilling the hole into the glass lid however, which can be a little bit more involved than a simple drilling into a plastic lid. But it’s doable. There are plenty of tutorials about drilling into glass on the internet and once you have done that, you just add the grommet and the 3-piece airlock as above!
I am getting ready to try this soon, as I just stocked up on some of those jars at IKEA! They currently have quite the variety of flip-top bottles and jars!

I will keep you updated on my progress!

Now let’s move on to fermenting vegetables.

In fermenting it is pretty much the most important thing to keep any fruit and vegetables submerged and well below the brine. The vegetables float to the top and anything that peeks out over the brine can grow moldy and spoil your entire jar.

So fermenters usually use weights that keep the food below the brine. For large crocks you can buy ceramic weights, but for the individual jars, you can purchase glass disks that keep your food submerged.

They are however quite expensive and it occurred to me that there must be something less expensive out there that would do the same job and that would be commonly available!

I did find it eventually, in the form of  the dollar store glass candle holders!

Yep, you’ve probably seen them before and they fit into most mason jar openings just right.

The best part? They are $1 for two. So yes, that’s 50 cents instead of $9 + per glass disk!

First, I thought the indentation in the middle might present a problem, but as it turns out, it’s actually a good thing as it makes getting the glass disk out of the jar much easier. You can just grip it from the middle and lift it out!

Just make sure you place the glass candleholder with the hole facing up in your jar and that you don’t have any food in the middle indentation, as that would invite spoilage! Having the brine in there is fine though!

And yes, it has occurred to me too that that cheap dollar store glass is probably made in China and that it may contain lead. So, I consulted my trusty Lead Check before I started using them and I can report that they do NOT contain lead! Yay!

I’ve been collecting a variety of fermenting recipes, which I will be trying. I have collected them here, if you want to follow along and try some of your own!

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