Homemade GingerAle

My little Colin was sick a few weeks ago with some kind of stomach bug and it was the perfect opportunity to try out a recipe I found for homemade gingerale. As the basic ingredients are all readilly avaliable and in my kitchen I thought it would be a fun experiment to try.
My 5 year old, Miles was particluarlly interested in the science aspects of this little project as I was explaining how the yeast ingests sugar and created gas bubbles the same way it does when you make bread.

Ingredients:
1 clean empty 2 liter soda bottle (do not use a glass bottle- it will explode under pressure)
juice from 1/2 lemon
3 tbsp grated ginger
1 cup sugar
1/4 tsp yeast
filtered water

Directions:

 Using a funnel, pour sugar into the 2 liter bottle.

 Add yeast.

 Finely grate ginger.

 Add to the bottle

 Juice lemon half.

 Add juice to bottle.

 Add filtered or bottled water.

 Leave 2 inch headspace at the top of the bottle. Screw on cap

 Shake until well combined.

The bottle should have give when you squeeze it.


Leave out at room temperature for 24hrs.
After 24hrs the yeast has ingested enough sugar to create carbon dioxide bubbles. The bottle will now feel taunt when you try to squeeze it.






This was so easy and fun I can't wait to try and make homemade rootbeer with the rootbeer extract I brought back from the States. I would also love to try vanilla soda with vanilla extract. really this recipe would work for anykind of soda- just change the flavoring.