Homemade ginger ale is one of our favorite drinks! We’ve been making it for many years, but we’ve had a question that was always nagging us. Normally we make spicy ginger beer using the standard boiling method, but what about using fresh ginger juice instead?
Today we’re showing you how to make ginger ale by juicing ginger in a juicer!
After getting this question multiple times from many of you, we’ve answered with a resounding YES, it works! And making this version is faster than the standard ginger ale soda syrup recipe where you have a boiling pot of ingredients that you have to cool down.
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Homemade Ginger Ale with Real Ginger (Fresh Juice!)
So if you’ve been around the homemade soda scene for a while, you know that typically the standard method of making homemade soda syrup is to put your ingredients in a pot, boil it for a while to make kind of a sweet, flavorful “tea” otherwise known as a “wort” and then needing to cool it to room temperature before adding your starter culture so you don’t kill it.
But what would happen instead if you started with fresh ginger juice that you didn’t sterilize?
Our first thought was that there would be more nutrients that didn’t get destroyed since there’s no heat involved and our second thought was that more of the flavor would be protected. Well it turns out that both of those are correct.
The reason we normally boil everything is so that we don’t have stray harmful bacteria that might spoil the batch. Another reason is to extract as much flavor as we can out of the ingredients.
Since we always use a ginger bug starter that isn’t boiled to begin with, why don’t we skip the boiling step and just use the fresh ginger juice to begin with? Essentially what you’d have is a giant batch of ginger bug starter that you’re turning into soda.
Let’s get into the recipe.
Spicy Ginger Beer Recipe with Fresh Ginger Juice
Makes 1/2 gallon
Equipment:
- Juicing Machine – This is a cheaper upgrade from ours
- 1/2 gallon jars or jugs for Primary Fermentation
- Mason jar funnel
- Fermentation lid <– These silicone lids work well for us
- (3) 16 oz. glass flip-top beer bottles <– We love these
- (1) 16 oz. heavy duty plastic bottle (such as Perrier or a soda bottle)
Ingredients for Ginger Ale:
- 1/2 cup fresh ginger juice (roughly 6 oz. fresh ginger by weight) (for regular recipe that’s less-spicy cut this in HALF)
- 1 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup Ginger Bug starter <– full post & video on how to make one
- 1 T lemon juice
- 1/2 gallon non-chlorinated water
Since we need fresh ginger juice, it’s time to break out the juicer that you might have in storage! If you don’t have a juicer and still want to try this method, you could try blending fresh ginger with water and then straining the juice through a fine sieve or a nut milk bag. Juicing machines are pretty amazing though.
If you haven’t tried fresh juice from a juicer, visit your local juice bar and try some! It might convince you to get one. Let’s make some bubbly ginger ale!
Juice fresh ginger through your juicer. You’re aiming for about 1/2 cup of fresh ginger juice. Alternatively, if you don’t have a juicer, you can blend fresh ginger with water and strain through a fine sieve or nut milk bag. You’ll need much more than a half cup of liquid since it won’t be concentrated ginger juice so you’ll have to estimate.
Add freshly juiced ginger, sugar, and lemon juice to 1/2 gallon mason jar.
Add ginger bug starter. (Since there’s no boiling involved, you can add it right away!) You could technically skip the ginger bug starter but it will probably take a little longer and also be a little less reliable since your ginger juice will have to stabilize itself as a balanced active culture.
Fill mason jar with non-chlorinated water up to 1/2 gallon mark and stir until sugar is dissolved.
Add your fermentation lid or a cloth and rubber band to cover and ferment at room temperature for 3-5 days. This may vary according to the temperature of your house. Before moving onto the bottling stage – WATCH OUT. Since we’re using fresh ginger juice, we’ve noticed it’s been very active for us compared to boiling the soda syrup.
What To Expect During Fermentation – Ginger Ale from Ginger Juice
The first thing we noticed is since the entire batch of ginger ale is made of fresh juice, it’s crazy active and doesn’t take long to get bubbling! After a day we started noticing little champagne-style bubbles. Even into the third day there was a steady stream of tiny bubbles.
After the third day, this would normally bring us into the bottling stage, but what we’ve noticed is when we bottled at this stage, it was still extremely active causing our bottles to carbonate in only a single day so watch out!
Secondary Fermentation – Bottling Fresh Ginger Ale for Carbonation
Once your fresh ginger ale has slowed down a bit, you should be able to move onto the bottling stage. Make sure to use a plastic tester bottle so you can judge the amount of pressure building up inside your bottles. We like the #1 plastic recyclable bottles that are already made for acidic sodas.
What we’re doing now for batches of fresh juice ginger ale is to ferment for 4 days and then move on to bottling possibly for 1-2 days. You’ll have to judge for yourself how active your ferment is. Having bottles of ginger ale carbonate so fast is too much of a danger for us so we’ve only been carbonating for about 1 day.
Homemade Ginger Ale Soda – The Real Stuff
If you’ve only ever had store bought ginger ale, you’re truly missing out on a lot of spice, flavor, and nutrition that commercial ginger ale can only try to imitate. There really is no comparison once you’ve tried the real stuff.
Using this recipe with fresh ginger juice or our previous recipe on how to make ginger ale, in only a few short days you should have a flavorful, bubbly soda that will impress your friends and family. Give it a try and let us know how your ferment is going! We hope you’ve enjoyed this recipe.
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please change my email . the current email is aurawaugh@gmail.com
the new email is laurawaugh9063@gmail.com
Sure thing Laura! We updated it for you. 🙂
Can I use ginger that I’ve juiced and frozen ahead of time? I would love to just juice 30 lbs of ginger, freeze most of it and then be able to pull out a little at a time to have a constant stream of ginger beer going without having to buy small amounts of ginger at retail price.
Hey Daniel, that’s a great idea! You can definitely use frozen ginger to use small amounts as you go to ferment. Then you could get a good deal on the ginger and spread it out over time. Love the idea!
Hi, I had making ginger ale follow your recipe, and only 3 days I had taste it, it’s was sour! It’s sometimes not right or just normal? What shall I do next? Can I add sugar?
Hello Sirimon, thank you for your question! After a few days it might be sour but not taste bad. You can adjust the sugar to what tastes good to you. Hope that helps!