I'm digging up some old photos to share. I'm partial to ginger beers, and experimented with other flavours available here (in Taiwan). Roselle is our favourite (with lemon, of course), and always carbonated quickly. Turmeric by itself was too much flavour-wise, but half and half with ginger was tasty.
Very cool, any recipes or tips you could share?
I followed Sandor Katz's approach (start a ginger bug with a cup of water, a tablespoon of sugar, and some grated ginger). It usually takes me a day to get that bubbling away. My recipes are fairly general: ~10-12% sugar solution, with enough roselle (or ginger, or ginger/turmeric, or mint/lemon) to give sufficient flavour. Ginger I usually boil with the water to extract more flavour. Mint and roselle I just steep in the water after bringing it to a boil. I almost always add some lemon, as that always makes it taste better. I rarely measure these amounts (apart from the water & sugar), but tend to go heavy on ginger if I'm using that.
I need to get a new ginger bug rolling, had a batch not carbonate and it took the wind out of my sails.
Once I got my hands on some water kefir/tibicos I didn't use ginger bugs anymore (though I have since killed off my tibicos). They are faster and more stable, but rather voracious. I ended up starving them off, though the acid they created probably was a big part of that as well.
Another fan of ginger bug ginger beer - I love it, delicious and seems magical, like sourdough. I always make a strong, sweet ginger and lemon infusion (for a gallon pitcher 2 cups sugar, about 4 lemons and as much ginger as I can stand to grate) bring to a simmer, cool and then strain it into the pitcher, strain in the ginger bug, and top with cool water if needed to make a gallon. This way no solids, less chance of failure.
Also love to ferment grapefruit juice with ginger bug. For that - the juice of 8 grapefruit & 2 lemons, less sugar, water to top and strained ginger bug OR mixing grapefruit juice with finished ginger beer half and half, add simple syrup and let it sit out a day or two till fizzy. Such a complex flavor and not intoxicating.
Are you adding yeast, or doing it wild? The few times I've tried ginger beer, it always ends up with a thick, almost gelatinous microbial mat. One time I strained it out and it tasted ok, but feels like I'm doing something wrong.
I'm using the wild yeast from the ginger/turmeric. It only takes a day or so to get the "ginger bug" going, and I've never had any issues. Ginger is all local and unprocessed (I'm washing dirt off it), so maybe that makes a difference?