Bug has been going three weeks and bubbles when I stir it. Made a batch with hibiscus and sugar, bottled it in some nice clip-top bottles I had, left it three days on the worktop. Opened one tonight and it is sweet ginger hibiscus water with no fizz at all.
Kitchen is cold, maybe 17C this time of year. Is three days just not enough, or have I got something wrong further back than that?
Check the bottles before you blame the timing, because nice clip-tops are not all pressure bottles. If the gasket is perished or the bottle was made to look good rather than hold gas, the carbon dioxide leaves as fast as the yeast makes it and you will never get fizz no matter how long you wait.
Swing-tops made for carbonated drinks, or bottles designed for pressure. Mason jars and decorative bottles mostly do not hold it. Leave about an inch of headspace while you are at it.
Roughly a quarter cup of active bug per litre is the usual starting point. Worth checking you were not thin on it.
One thing to carry with you now that you are about to fix the warmth problem: these build serious pressure, and glass bottles do burst. The failure mode flips from flat to dangerous quite quickly once the conditions are right.
So pressure-rated bottles, burp or squeeze-test daily, and the moment it is fizzy move the lot to the fridge, which slows everything down enormously. Open over a sink and pointed away from your face. The flat batch is the safe mistake; the next one is the other kind.
@cold_kitchen · 7d ago · 3 replies
17C is most of it. Yeast slows right down in a cool room and the one to three days people quote assumes somewhere in the low to mid twenties. In a cold kitchen the same batch might want five or six days, and you opened at three and let the pressure out.
Find the warmest spot you have, an airing cupboard or on top of the fridge, and give it longer. Also use the bug a few hours after feeding rather than days after, which is when it is at its most active.
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@flat_after_three · 6d ago
How do I tell it is ready without opening one and wasting it?
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@plastic_tester · 6d ago
Bottle one plastic bottle alongside the glass ones as a tester. Squeeze it daily: when it goes firm and stops giving, the batch is carbonated. Costs you nothing and you never open a glass bottle to find out.
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