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How to use an Airlock for Fermentation

As a follow up to my post about fermenting ginger beer and making a ginger bug I thought I should include a post about how to use an airlock.

Or rather post a video about it since someone on youtube (Matt Williams) conveniently has a video on this topic. So kudos to him.

Fermented Ginger Beer Recipe

To make fermented ginger beer you first need to learn how to make a ginger bug, aka, a ginger beer fermentation bug. It isn't complicated, and it is so simple you could do it in the kitchen, in the garage, or while living in a cabin up north.

Makes for a fun DIY project.

Ginger Beer Fermentation Bug

500 ml filtered water
2 heaping tablespoons sugar (roughly 4 tablespoons)
2 heaping tablespoons finely chopped ginger (roughly 4 tablespoons)

Stir in a glass or plastic container - DO NOT USE A METAL CONTAINER!

Cover the container with a cloth (eg. cheese cloth) for 24 hours and let it sit.

Add 1 heaping tablespoon ginger and 1 heaping tablespoon sugar every day for 2-3 days until bubbly.

Label and Date your Ginger Bug container so you know when you started it. The ginger bug doesn't stay good forever so once it is ready to use you should try to use it up by fermenting Ginger Beer (or other fermented drinks) as soon as possible. You can sometimes keep it for awhile, but keep in mind it will eventually go bad so it is best to try and use it sooner rather than later.

Or alternatively, if you really want to keep your Ginger Bug alive just continue to feed it daily the same amount of sugar and ginger. it may still go bad (like eventually...), but if you keep feeding it then it will prolong the lifespan of the ginger bug. Getting too full? Transfer half of it to a 2nd container. Now you have 2 ginger bugs. You could keep them both or give one to a friend who is also into fermenting drinks.

Note - Now that you have a Ginger Bug you can ferment other things too. Apple juice, grape juice, peach juice, almost any kind of juice. Certain things like Coca-Cola cannot be fermented because it is too acidic.

Ginger Beer Recipe

2 quarts of water
1.33 cups sugar
0.25 cup grated ginger

Pour water, sugar and grated ginger into large pot. Boil contents and let simmer for 5-8 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool naturally.

When the contents reach room temperature (takes about an hour or more) strain the contents into a bowl to remove the large chunks of ginger.

Add 0.5 cup of Ginger Bug (also strained).

Add 3 lemons worth of lemon juice. Squeeze them good.

Pour contents of bowl into bottles. Leave 2-4 inches of headroom in the bottle to prevent it from bursting.

Stopper the bottles. Leave the bottles out in room temperature to ferment for 3-6 days, until they are good and fizzy.

If using a pressure stopper you can let them sit for the full 3-6 days, but if you are using other kinds of stoppers (eg. flip top bottles) you will need to "burp" them once per day so that the pressure doesn't build up until they explode. Remember to burp them above a bowl or sink.

Do not store flip top bottles near windows or glass. If they fly open they can also fly off and break things.

Open above a sink or bowl, because it will likely be really fizzy the first time it is opened and may overflow.

After the 3-6 days has elapsed store your fermented ginger beer in a cold fridge to kill the yeast. After a day you can now drink at your leisure.

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