# Making Switchel soda?



## Joe Hillmann (Apr 27, 2015)

I can't help you with the vinegar part but if I were just making a honey soda I would water down the honey until you had a liquid that is around 20 to 30 percent sugar. So one part honey to two or three parts water. 

Add a pinch of champagne yeast. (Champagne yeast will not give it a bread-ish flavor
or less of one at least)

Then bottle it in plastic soda bottles. 

Let them sit at room temp for 2-4 days or until the bottles become hard(the yeast will create co2 which will pressurize the bottles)

As soon as the bottles are hard put them in the fridge or drink them. If they get too hard they can explode. Putting them in the fridge doesn't stop the yeast it slows it way down. If you take it out of the fridge for any length of time where it can warm up they will start making alcohol and pressure again. 

If you do add vinegar I would probably boil the vinegar first before adding it to the honey mix so you are sure to kill the bacteria that make vinegar so it can't compete with the yeast (vinegar bacteria will always beat yeast and then you will end up with honey vinegar rather than soda)

If you want to try something cheaper than honey to practice on do the same process but start with kool aid rather than honey.


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## Ben Brewcat (Oct 27, 2004)

What Joe said . The vinegar shouldn't be a problem; it needs oxygen to reproduce and metabolize so in a sealed batch shouldn't be an issue. Definitely will need to cool until you drink each bottle: as mentioned the low temps slows the yeast's metabolic activity to a crawl. You can bottle in anything you want really but use at least a couple plastic PETE bottles so you can use that rigidity test to know when to chill it down.


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## aunt betty (May 4, 2015)

Good vinegar is distilled three times and is sterile. 
You can use it in the recipe before you 'brew' it or whatever. 
The trick to making sweet carbonated liquids is using the least amount of yeast possible. Create the bubbles and let the yeast die. It settles to the bottom. You can refrigerate it after the yeast is dead. 

Refrigeration will stop the fermentation process but if there are live yeast it will start up again as long as sugar is present.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switchel


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