Candied Ginger Kombucha

Achieving the perfect balance of sweet and spicy in ginger kombucha

A Beginner's Guide on How to Make Candied Ginger Kombucha

Ginger and kombucha, when these two come together, you get a tart slightly sweet fizzy kombucha with a spicy kick of ginger. You’d be hard-pressed to find a better combination than this. In this recipe, we will use candy ginger as opposed to fresh ginger. This serves as a dual purpose to both flavor and adds sugar in one calculated move. For those of you who may not be huge fans of ginger because of its spicy bite? You need to try using candy ginger instead of fresh. The candying process mellows out the spicy punch of raw, fresh ginger and gives you deliciously earthy yet fresh kombucha with a mellow ginger flavor. For those of you who want more spice, simply add more candied ginger!

Primary vs Secondary Fermentation

It’s important to note that brewing homemade kombucha is almost always a two-step fermentation process. Brewing kombucha is only a one-step process for those who prefer an unflavored flat kombucha. Otherwise, the steps consist of a primary fermentation and secondary fermentation.

Primary Fermentation: The primary fermentation is the first step of the kombucha brewing process. This is where your SCOBY transforms regular sweet tea into the tart and slightly sweet kombucha we love. At the end of this stage, you will have finished kombucha, but it will be flat and unflavored. Have you skipped this step? Then check out our guide on making kombucha at home or our guide on making jun kombucha at home. Traditional kombucha is going to yield a bolder brew, while jun kombucha is milder and a bit more tart.
Secondary Fermentation: The secondary fermentation is the step where you bottle, carbonate, and flavor your kombucha by the addition of sugar and flavors. This step is essentially adding a bit of sugar/flavor to each airtight bottle and letting it ferment a little longer, allowing the yeast to carbonate the beverage in an airtight environment naturally. How exactly does this happen? See our post on kombucha secondary fermentation here.

Since this recipe is for the secondary fermentation, to make this recipe, you’ll need to have kombucha that has finished the primary fermentation and ready to bottle.

Ingredients

Kombucha: You need kombucha that has completed primary fermentation and is ready to bottle and flavor.
Candied Ginger: An indulgently perfect treat OR secret weapon ingredient for kombucha secondary fermentation. Since candied ginger brings its own sugar to the party, you can rest assured that your kombucha will be fizzy and packed with delicious gingery goodness. You can order our fantastic candied ginger here or pick some up at your local grocery store.

Secondary Fermentation Preparation

This recipe makes one 16-fluid-ounce bottle. A 1-gallon batch of kombucha will make seven 16-ounce bottles, so for one gallon, you will need to multiply the ingredients by 7. Before beginning this recipe, you will need to:

Reserve 12 – 16 fluid ounces of kombucha and a pellicle from a batch of kombucha that has finished primary fermentation. It’s best to pour from the top of the brew jar as the bottom will have a much higher yeast concentration. Use this as the starter for your next gallon batch of kombucha. If you need to make kombucha to get caught up to this step, you will need to see our post on how to make kombucha.
With your kombucha starter tea and SCOBY placed aside, enough kombucha will be left over in the jar to make seven 16 oz bottles when pulled from a gallon batch. Flip-top or swing bottles are the gold standard and are considered the best bottles for kombucha secondary fermentation. However, any bottle with a lid designed to hold pressure will work. It’s important to note the difference between airtight and pressure-rated lids. Airtight lids alone are not good enough for secondary fermentation; in addition to being airtight, the lids must also be capable of holding pressure. Airtight lids are designed to keep ambient air from entering and exiting; however, they are not designed to hold pressure. Inadequate lids will allow carbonation to leak during secondary fermentation, thus preventing your kombucha from ever carbonating.