Lightly sweet, mostly dry, and bursting with bubbles, a naturally fermented lemonade soda is one of our favorite probiotic treats to make - particularly in summer when it helps to quench thirst brought on by hot days spent under the sun's bright and warm rays.
Homemade, naturally fermented lemonade is also easy to make. It involves less than five minutes of active time in the kitchen, mostly spent stirring before bottling and waiting for friendly bacteria to do the work for you.
It is also a great way to introduce kids to gut-friendly fermented foods.
How to Get Lemonade Naturally Fizzy
This homemade, naturally fermented lemonade soda's fizz depends on the action of friendly bacteria. They gobble up the carbohydrates in the honey. In the end, those bacteria make your natural sodas less sweet, slightly more tart, rich in B vitamins and naturally fizzy.
The natural fizz comes from the release carbon dioxide that happens during fermentation. When carbon dioxide is bottled up with no place to go in flip-top bottles, the lemonade becomes naturally fizzy. Depending on how long you allow the lemonade to ferment, that fizziness can range from an effervescent tickle to a frenzied foaming.
Fermented, Probiotic Honey Lemonade Soda
Ingredients
For the Lemonade Soda
- 6 cups water
- 1 cup honey
- 1 cup lemon juice
- ½ cup fresh whey
Special Equipment
Instructions
- Warm the water in a saucepan over low heat, keeping it just warm enough to dissolve the honey - about 100 F. Whisk in the honey continuously until fully dissolved in the water. Turn off the heat, and remove the pot from the stove.
- Whisk the lemon juice and whey into the honey water until fully incorporated.
- Pour the lemonade through a narrow funnel flip-top bottles. Seal the bottles, and allow the lemonade to sit at room temperature to ferment at least four and up to seven days. You can open a bottle to check for fizziness and flavor, keeping in mind that the warmer your kitchen and the more time you allow, the sourer and more fizzy your soda will be.
Variations for Your Starter Culture
Of course, the bacteria responsible for all the goodness of homemade sodas needs to come from somewhere, and, in the case of this fermented, probiotic lemonade soda recipe, they come from fresh whey. Fresh whey is the liquid that accumulates on top of your yogurt, and it is also the liquid leftover when you make homemade yogurt or milk kefir and strain it.
You can also use kombucha tea, jun tea, water kefir or ginger bug in place of whey in this recipe. They’re all a good source of the friendly microbes you need to make homemade, fermented soda.
