Had a bug going since July, fed it most days, made soda with it every week or so. Then I went away for a fortnight and left it on the worktop. Came back to something that smells sharply of vinegar rather than ginger, barely any bubbles, and a layer of sediment.
It does not look mouldy and nothing is fuzzy. Is this finished, or is there a way back? And is the vinegar smell itself a safety thing or just a flavour thing?
Worth being precise about what you are checking for, since vinegar smell gets treated as a warning sign and is not one. Acidity discourages most of what you would actually worry about, which is why a sour jar is in less trouble than a sweet neglected one.
The bin signals are fuzzy or coloured mould, and a smell that is rotten or putrid rather than sharp. Sediment is just yeast that has settled. Sharp and clean plus a bit of sludge is a jar that needs feeding, not throwing out.
If you are not using it for a while, put it in the fridge and feed it about weekly. Mine survives months that way.
You can use it as it is, for what it is worth. The soda will come out sour and flatter, because the sugar the yeast needed for fizz has already gone into acid. Better to refresh for three days first.
Or keep the sour liquid deliberately. A very vinegary bug goes into a dressing or a marinade quite happily, and that is a more honest use of it than pretending it will make a decent soda.
@acetic_takeover · 4w ago · 3 replies
Flavour, not safety, and it is recoverable. What has happened is that one half of the culture has run away with it. Yeasts eat sugar and give you the fizz plus a little alcohol. Acetic acid bacteria then turn that alcohol into acetic acid, which is vinegar.
Underfed, left too long, warm, plenty of air: that is the exact set of conditions that hands the jar to the vinegar side. Your fortnight on a worktop is all four at once. The sugar ran out, the alcohol got converted, and the smell followed.
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@sharp_not_gingery · 4w ago
So feeding it harder for a few days brings it back, or do I need to start over?
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@acetic_takeover · 4w ago
Dilute it rather than feed it harder. Pour most of the liquid away, keep a small amount as starter, top up with filtered or dechlorinated water, then a tablespoon of sugar and a tablespoon of fresh grated ginger daily, stirred, at cool room temperature. Three days and you should have ginger and yeast back with bubbles.
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