Keep Calm and Ferment On

A delicious selection of homemade sodas!

One of the advantages of being cooped up inside is that you start doing all that stuff you normally would like to do, but don’t have time for. Or, in my case, do what you were doing already a lot more. Like fermenting delicious drinks. Fermenting is such a fun thing to do with children, and mine love the flavour of our homemade fizzy sodas! You can make them as sweet or sour as you like, and add all sorts of fruits and spices to spruce them up. I get a lot of questions about how to make them, so I'll share my recipes and experiences here. 

You don’t need a lot of materials to get started, but what is imperative is to get some flip-top glass bottles that close well, and some large glass jars. For some versions a strainer, a funnel, a grater and a blender can come in handy too, as do cup measures. I normally prefer weighing ingredients as it is more precise, but in this case, cups are much easier to use and more than precise enough. Also, you’ll need a lot of sugar! But don’t worry, most of the sugar will be broken down by the good bacteria by the time you drink your soda, and those bacteria will do all sorts of wonders for your gut. So basically, these delicious sodas are not only delicious good for you too.

I won’t bore you too much with the scientific details, but feel free to ask them in the comment section as well as any other questions you have. 

Kombucha

Kombucha is a fermented tea, and it is extremely easy to make. The one thing you need is a kombucha SCOBY (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast), which is a solid mass of microorganisms that will ferment your drink. The best way to get one is to reach out amongst your network if someone has some to share. I definitely have some to share, they grow very fast. Kombucha feeds on very strong and very sweet tea. I typically use 4 tea bags and ¾ cup of sugar with 2 liters of water, but kombucha is very forgiving so don’t worry too much. Kombucha microorganisms are a non-fancy bunch, they like simple black tea and white sugar best. Although you can use other types of tea and sugar, it is best to regularly give them some good old builders brew with a light sugar to stay strong.

Kombucha brewing, the SCOBY on top

Let your hot tea cool down to room temperature before you add the SCOBY – you don’t want to kill it. The SCOBY is a layer that gets formed on the top, and with every brew another layer will form until it resembles a pile of pancakes. When it gets too thick, simply peel off a few and discard (give away or compost). Cover your jar with a cloth and elastic band – you want to let air in and keep the ants, flies and lizards out.

So how long to let it ferment? This depends on both the temperature of your kitchen and your taste. I like mine quite sour, so I leave it a little longer, but my kids prefer it sweet. Just use a clean spoon to try a little. As the colour slowly gets lighter as it ferments I now tend to judge if it's ready by colour. Mine (brewing at tropical temperatures) is usually ready in two days. You can drink it straight, or choose to do a second ferment, which I will describe in more detail below.

Milk kefir and yoghurt

For kefir you need kefir grains, which are similar to a SCOBY but small and roundish rather than flat, hence the name. There are two types, one to ferment milk, and one to ferment clear liquids. The milk kefir grains feed on lactose (or milk sugar) in milk, the water grains on different sugars, but the process is fairly similar. In our family we love milk kefir as it reminds us of the Dutch buttermilk, which these days is mostly no longer churned but fermented. Other cultured milk products from the Middle East like Ayran and Laban are made in a similar way, as is yoghurt, the reason they all taste different and gave different textures is because different cultures are used. 

To make milk kefir, simply add a few spoons of kefir grains to a jar of milk; they will float to the top. Then leave it out until you have the flavour you like (the longer, the more sour). I have had issues doing this in very hot weather, as the milk will curdle before it ferments (which means it separates into thick curds floating on liquid transparent whey). There is no fixing this, but you can use that whey for whey soda explained below, and put the curds in a smoothie. Or make cheese from it, but that is another story). To prevent curdling, I would ferment milk kefir in the fridge in Singapore. 

Kitchen top 'cheat' yoghurt

Because I don’t have milk kefir grains at the moment, I buy my kefir ready made, and then make it last longer (it’s expensive here!) by this cheat method. Simply leave a little in the bottle, top up with fresh milk, and leave it out until it thickens. Make sure to shake regularly, I find it goes fast, so don’t leave it out too long.

We do exactly the same for yoghurt, by putting a few spoons of store bought yoghurt in a jar and topping up with milk and leaving it out. In colder climates you will need to do this in an oven or hot place, but here its warm enough. For best results, heat up the milk for yoghurt until 80C, this gives a sweeter flavor and also makes the yogurt set better. Make sure to cool it down before adding the cultures or you’ll kill them!

Water kefir

Water kefir grains live on a sugar solution. You can also use them to ferment coconut water, but you do need to feed them sugars regularly too or they’ll flounder. Again, it’s not rocket science when it comes to measurements, but I do find kefir less forgiving than kombucha. They need extra minerals, so you need to mix in some darker sugars, molasses, or even a pinch of seasalt. Some people add dried fruit like apricot for this reason, but I find dark sugars work just as well and much easier.

I use roughly ½ cup of light sugar for 2 liters of water, plus a small scoop of a darker sugar as a supplement. You can experiment with different brands, but don’t use a very refined sugar. Toss in two spoons of kefir grains and cover with a cloth. Again, taste to see what acidity suits you. The longer you leave it the more sour!

Second ferment

We tend to drink our kombucha straight and do a second ferment for the water kefir, but this process works for either drink. Transfer your kefir/ kombucha to a flip-top bottle, but don’t fill all the way to the top. Now for the fun bit! Add any kind of fruit and spices you fancy. You can either blend the fruit, mush lightly or toss in in straight. I most often use passion fruit or (frozen) berries as those are easy and yummy, but any fruit will do. Harder fruits like apple are best added as a juice or puree. You can add slices of ginger, a stick of cinnamon. Get creative!

Now, set the bottle in a warm spot and wait. Make sure to burb your bottles regularly to let out the gas. Once it's fizzy it is done, transfer the bottle to the fridge – it will keep there for a few weeks, but will keep fermenting slowly. Be careful when opening bottles, always press down the top and open it slowly; sometimes there is so much fizz it will burst out explosively. I have had stains on the ceiling! 

Whey soda

Making whey soda is relatively new to me, and I am amazed how easy and delicious it is. It is a bit of a cheat’s ferment as it makes use of left over whey which is already rich in pro-biotics, so it is a great one to make if you have yoghurt or milk kefir gone bad or produce your own cheese. (I started doing this because a friend who sells artisanal cheese was looking for some products to make with her left over whey; I used to work as a product developer in the food industry, so that was right up my alley. Alternatively some stores also sell liquid whey, I got some at Bali Direct). In the Netherlands there are a number of whey beverages on the market, and the distinct flavour of it brings up memories. If you don’t like that, it is easily masked by strong fruit flavours.

Whey soda, the kids experimenting with flavours

For when soda I tend to puree the fruits, as we don’t just use them for flavour, we need to release their fruit sugars. For a one liter bottle I use between ½ and 1 cup liquid whey, which you add to a sweet fruit juice drink. To make that I puree fruit with some additional sugar, quantities are approximate and depend on your taste. It should be a little too sweet to drink straight. For instance, I would puree ½ a cup of berries with 1/3 cup of sugar for a one liter bottle, but you can add more or less depending on your taste. To be honest, I usually don’t actually measure and just do it on gut feel. (Something that I had to stop doing on my job as a product developer, as you can imagine!) A squeeze of lemon gives a little tang to a berry and brings out the flavour. Whey soda is quite forgiving, but it can also be very explosive so be mindful not to add too much sugar and whey.

My kids love the berry flavoured ones (blueberry-dragonfruit is a solid hit, as is raspberry lime), but my personal favourite is mandarin – turmeric, which has a note of bitter in it, just like Campari.

Ginger beer

I love, love, love ginger and all sorts of root beers and although these can be a little more tricky to make, trust me, it will be worth it. Imagine yourself with a homemade Dark & Stormy cocktail of fresh gingerbeer and dark rum. Most shop-bought root beers are just carbonated sugary flavoured drinks, but this stuff is the real deal. Add the beneficial features of many roots and you have the moist delicious health tonic ever (did anyone say gin?). Isn’t that what we all need in times of Corona?

Ginger- turmeric bug

So the first thing to do is to make your ginger bug, which will take a few days to a week. Roots have a lot of microorganisms on their surface, and it is these we want to proliferate. Apart from ginger, salsaparilla and burdock are traditionally used, but since we are in Asia I stick to gingers. Regular ginger works best. I have tried to make a turmeric starter, since it is such an amazing anti-inflammatory as well as flavour, but it does not work. Now I make one that is a mixture of ginger and turmeric and that works well. I occasionally toss in other ginger family roots, and the other day even some burdock. But using regular ginger as a base is your safest bet. Get organic ones if you can, we don't want chemicals in our ferment. There is no need to peel, the skin is where most of the micro-organisms live. 

To make a ginger bug, grate or finely chop some ginger and put it in a jar, cover with water and a few spoons of sugar. Quantities are not that important, but let’s say roughly 2 cups of water, a scant cup of ginger and a few spoons of sugar. Most sugars will work. You can cover the jar with a lid or cloth. Now you need to feed it daily, by a spoon of sugar, a spoon of grated ginger and stir. After a while you will notice it gets bubbly and smells and tastes sour, which means it is ready to go! If you don't want to feed your bug all the time, store it in the fridge, and only feed it once every week or so. In that case, you need to let it come our of hibernation before you can use it by feeding it at room temperature for a day. If it is at room temperature try to feed it a spoon of sugar most days, and grated ginger regularly, but it is okay to skip a day if you forget. 

Ginger - turmeric beer

To make ginger beer, make a sugar solution in a flip-top bottle, roughly ¼ cup of sugar to a bottle, but I tend to not measure but eyeball it. You can use any sugar, I like to use dark sugars like the Indonesian Gula Aren (palm sugar) for extra flavour. For a one-liter bottle add roughly a few tablespoons, more or less depending on taste, and add some of the grated ginger for a stronger ginger flavour. Top up your ginger bug with new grated ginger, water and sugar. 

At this stage you can add any fruit or spice that you fancy as well, similar to a second ferment as above. Then leave it out and remember to burp. It takes a little longer to get carbonated, typically up to two days in the tropics, just taste it to see when you like it. If you are lucky it will get a proper fizz! 

This is my repertoire at the moment, if you have been fermenting other drink, I'd love to hear, please do share tour experiences in the comments!

Essential

The best thing to calm me down, for instance when the world has suddenly turned completely upside down, is to be in nature. So it is my luck that right now, as we have to stay at home, I am living in a place surrounded by rice fields. When stress takes over my body I sit and breathe and look at those waving green stalks. Nature gives me perspective, it shows me what is really important in the grand scheme of things.

In those rice fields, life goes on. Plants do not stop growing, or go in lock-down, and when the government talks about ‘essential jobs’ that have to go on, this must clearly be one of the most essential jobs in the world, not just now, in times of corona and panic, but always: Farming. 

My son Tijm at work in the fields 

We need food to stay alive. And not just any food; healthy, nourishing food, and this current crisis makes it clear how our modern lifestyles weaken our bodies, people that are obese, have diabetes or similar health conditions are vulnerable. This is not the last virus that will hit humanity, and this pandemic resonates with issues I have been pondering this last year in Bali and at the Green School: the future of agriculture and the food industry. Friends who met me in the last few years know me as a writer with a passion for human rights, which I am, but this sabbatical in Bali I find myself at a crossroads. Do I continue with that, or do I go back to an earlier version of myself? As a teenager I wanted to study tropical farming, I loved plants and badly wanted to be back in the tropics of my childhood. But then, I could not see myself as a farmer, my lifestyle has always been nomadic, not grounded in one spot. Later I developed a new passion, and wanted to be a perfumer, but recurring sinus infections in the cold northern European weather ruled perfumery school in Paris out. I ended up studying chemistry, although I can’t really remember why. I specialised in sustainable development, a subject at the time – twenty years ago, gosh I am old - still developing itself, and fascinating. 

Ploughing with cows, much harder than it looks

As life is what happens when you make other plans, I somehow ended up with a job at one of world’s biggest food manufacturers as a product developer for ice cream. Creating new flavours, sourcing fair trade and sustainable ingredients, for ten years it was a dream job until I realised that such a big commercial company, in the end, wasn’t for me. With three young kids we moved to Singapore, I started writing, and that seemed that. But Bali is known to be a place that opens your eyes. It is full of people that want to ‘find themselves’, as I used to sneer, but not me because I knew exactly who I was. Then, of course, Bali slapped me in the face and laughed. 

Green School parents at work in the field, planting

Green School Bali is not only a school for the kids, it also offers courses for parents, and the first thing Roel and I both did after we arrived was enrol in a rice farming course organised by Kul Kul Connection, the departement at school dedicated to forging connections to the local community. It was such an inspiration that we joined again in the second semester, and I topped it up with a course in syntrophic farming and agroforestry. Suddenly I was that teenager again as I bended over the soil, feet in the mud and hands on the leaves, the hot tropical sun beating on my head and shoulders. I know my rheumatic body and nomadic lifestyle will never make me a farmer but boy, I am so tempted.

Roel weeding: SRI rice production means more weeds!

As we observe the Balinese farmers, listen to experts from over the world, as we toil and chat, ponder and learn, I start to realise more and more what a dire state our food supply is in. Monoculture depletes soil everywhere, wrecks biodiversity, disrupts the climate. Unhealthy lifestyles make people susceptible for diseases, there is an explosion of auto-immune conditions like the one I suffer from, one I know is strongly influenced by my diet. Massive changes will need to be made if humanity wants a future. This current pandemic illustrates that only more clearly. 

left: Pak Wayan, one of the Balinese farmers we work with
middle: an agriculture specialist from the Badung government

In Bali, most of the farmers are over 60 years of age. Getting farming to be ‘sexy’ and a popular choice for young people is one of the challenges the island faces. But of the high school students I teach creative writing to, none want to be a farmer, even though many of their grandparents were. These are smart and ambitious kids, that want to be lawyers, doctors and accountants. Their parents work in tourism or run businesses. Why would they work long back-breaking hours in the heat for a pittance, a fraction of what they can make in a cool office?

Not much easier than the cows..

Farming these days is not ‘romantic’. Modern farmers in Bali don’t use the farming methods of their grandfathers, they use the methods promoted by the government since the Green Revolution of the late 20th century; a way of production where everyone uses the same hybrid seeds, and an increasing amount of chemical fertiliser as the soil depletes and an increasing amount of pesticides as the unbalanced eco-system gets ravaged by pests and diseases. The resulting grains have less flavour and nutritional value than the rice I remember from when I was young and living in this region.

Pak Wayan seeding our no-till ricefield 

Those older farmers still remember how it used to be. How there were eels and frogs in the fields that naturally fertilised the soil. How the water coming down to the subak from the aquifers in the mountains was clean and not full of nitrates. But they also know there are many people to feed in Indonesia, and that the current population can’t be fed on the low yields those old methods produced. Most people in Indonesia can’t afford to pay the premium for the organically produced rice we grow in our course – we sell it to expats and restaurants, and to Green School that feeds it to our kids. The flavour is amazing. 

Me, happy at harvest time

If one thing has become clear to me, it is that we need to find a way where we combine the good things of the past, where balanced eco-systems were naturally protected and nature not a threat, with modern methods that allow us to produce enough to feed a growing world population. The courses I did the last year showed me many innovations in agriculture that offer solutions, and also that farmers are keen to join in. The challenge will be to roll these innovations out, to get governments on board, to supply initial investments and guidance. It is something that needs to be done. Because the natural world, the climate, the soil, the water; they are all essential for our very existence. The most essential. We can train doctors and develop vaccines as much as we like, but without a healthy world, we are fighting a losing battle.

Arthur, a farmer from Brazil teaching agroforestry 

So as I sit behind my laptop, typing as I glance over the screen at the rice fields beyond, I know that Bali raised more questions for me than it can answer. The crossroads we all stand at right now might seem blocked - in a literal sense, as there are very few flights out of Bali and most countries closed their borders – but the good thing is the roads are there in front of us, we just need to decide which one to take. Do we go on as usual, or do we make a U-turn and fix this world? There is one thing my all-over-the place life taught me, and that is that many roads go to the same destination, they meander and cross again, go over hills and hurdles, through streams, deserts and fields of abundance. As long as you go forward, not back, you will get there. 

Looking at the farmer ploughing his field behind my house, a slew of white birds behind him picking up the worms he whips up, I feel optimistic. He is essential. Hopefully I can be too.