A dandelion bug soda starter culture is a probiotic fermentation of the dandelion root, which can be used to make delicious, fizzy homemade sodas.

jar containing 2 day old dandelion bug soda starter culture made with dandelion root.

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Maybe you have heard of using ginger rhizomes to make a ginger bug. Well, you can make a similar starter culture using dandelion roots. Dandelion roots are everywhere and grow naturally, probably in your backyard. Dandelions are packed with health benefits from flowers to root. If you need to do some weeding, save a few dandelion roots, wash them well and let’s make a dandelion bug for your next home-brewed fizzy batch of sodas!

Use this dandelion bug to make delicious sodas, such as home brewed ginger beer and fizzy lemonade and other flavored sodas. You can also make a ginger bug for making sodas if you have easy access to ginger.

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Why Make A Dandelion Bug?

background photo of a bubbly dandelion bug starter culture. text overlay reads probiotic soda starter dandelion root bug. make this starter culture and create delicious, fizzy, homemade sodas! foodforlifegarden.com.

I love using my girl ginger, the ginger bug for homemade sodas, but frankly, it can get expensive to feed her if I need to buy the fresh ginger. And organic ginger is not available where I live. I do grow some of my own ginger too, but I don’t have a big window to keep a bunch of pots for growing plants inside in the winter. My yurt has just one window and I have a big shelf in front of it, because it’s crammed in here and I need to use every bit of space to store my stuff.

So I have been thinking about using local resources to make a starter culture bug with something that’s free and grows wild. The best candidate in my opinion is dandelion root. It grows everywhere, is abundant and sometimes it grows in spots where I prefer not to have it.

That is why I started using dandelion root for my soda starter bug and she’s working out really nice so far. I decided to name her because she’s proving herself capable of doing her job here and is welcome to stay. Y’all, welcome Ms. Dandy Lion to the soda making department at Food for Life Garden!

Healthy And Useful Dandelion Root

fresh dug dandelion root in a person's hand

I probably don’t have to tell you that the dandelion has a ton of health benefits. All parts of the plant can be used and I hope to do a detailed post about the benefits of dandelion and the many ways it can be used.

Dandelion root is famous for making a liver-supporting coffee substitute when roasted, similar as chicory root. The root gets roasted and ground into a powder that tastes a bit like coffee and is great if you want to cut down on your caffeine intake.

As an avid coffee drinker, I drink my fair share of the brew each day, but don’t like the hyperness that comes with having so much caffeine. So I mix half real coffee grains and half chicory or dandelion root granules in my percolator to get a super flavorful coffee that tastes better than straight coffee in my opinion, and I consume less caffeine. That’s a win-win!

So let’s make more use of the awesome dandelion root with today’s recipe:

How To Make A Dandelion Root Bug

For now though, we’ll make an awesome starter culture that we can use to make naturally carbonated sodas. You’ll be able to use it for making fizzy lemonade, fruit juice sodas, and carbonating teas. If you’re so inclined, you can even use it to start a batch of wine. But we will not get into this today, that’s for later. Today we’ll make a lively, fizzy dandelion bug. Let’s get to the recipe.

Equipment

A pint sized glass jar with a lid

Ingredients

washed dandelion root on a rusty surface.

Dandelion Root – Pick your roots from an area that you know is free of pesticides and away from roadsides, power lines, gas pipelines, or other maintained areas. City parks are probably not a good idea. Wash it well and if necessary lightly scrub. Do not peel. Then chop into thin slices.

Organic cane sugar – Great choices are evaporated cane juice granules, sucanat (panela sugar), or coconut sugar.

Do not use sulfured molasses, the sulfur will kill your fermentation critters. Honey is highly anti-microbial and is not a good choice for creating a starter. It can be used later in making soda, but for your starter culture it is best to use granulated sugar.

Filtered or well water – Chlorine in water kills the microbes that we need, so don’t use straight tap water or chlorinated well water. I don’t have water installed here, so I use either trucked in well water or rain water that I filter through my Berkey water filter.

Instructions for Making A Dandelion Bug Starter Culture

Day One

chopped dandelion root pieces in a glass jar.

Add 1-2 tablespoons of chopped dandelion root to the glass jar.

glass jar containing water and dandelion root pieces.

Pour 1 cup of filtered water over the ingredients

sugar is added to the dandelion and water in a glass jar.

Add 1 tablespoon of sugar.

capped jar containing the dandelion bug starter culture ready to ferment.

Stir well to dissolve the sugar and screw the cap on fingertight.

Set the jar out of sunlight in a warm place (70-80 degrees is ideal)

Day Two

Now you’ll do your first bug feeding:

Add 1 teaspoon of chopped dandelion root

Add 1 teaspoon of sugar

Stir well, recap, and place somewhere out of direct sunlight

Day Three and onward

Feed the bug just the same as on day two.

*After just 2 days this girl started to bubble nicely!*

By now you should see some bubbling and a difference in the scent of the bug.

Observe your starter culture. It should show some lively bubbling, look cloudy, and smell ‘fermented’. This can happen anywhere between 2 and 7 days.

When is it ready to make soda?

You can try to make soda once your dandelion bug is vigorously bubbling away. Sometimes it’s fizzy in 3 days, but if you’re not in too much of a hurry, I would wait till day 5 before you use it as a starter culture. Sometimes it can take a week, if your environment is on the cool side.

Maintenance

Keep feeding your new dandelion root starter culture once every day or two while you keep it on the counter. If you want to use it, remove what you need and replace the water, add one teaspoon of the dandelion root and one teaspoon of sugar. You’ll have to remove some of the dandelion root pieces occasionally when your jar has too many in it. But otherwise this is all the maintenance your dandelion starter needs.

If you want to take a break from using the bug, you can store it in the refrigerator after feeding. You can keep it in the refrigerator for a long time, but take it out occasionally, once every two weeks to a month, to give it a feeding. This will keep it healthy. I like to take my bugs out for a few days every so often just to regenerate them. But they will normally be fine even for several months without feeding or warming.

How To Use Your Dandelion Bug

This dandelion bug is a starter culture that will put fizzy carbonation into your drinks. It can be used the same as a ginger bug in recipes.

bottle with some lemonade ingredients for fermenting, with the dandelion bug in a jar sitting next to it.

Basically you can add about 2 tablespoons of the starter and some sugar to a pint of any liquid and seal it tight. I very much recommend grolsch type bottles with flip-tops for this. They are best at sealing in the carbon dioxide so your soda develops some fizz.

Let it sit at room temperature for 2-3 days. This is when the probiotic bacteria and yeasts multiply and feed on the sugars in the drink. They eat the sugars and produce lactic acid, and carbon dioxide as a by-product. A very small amount of alcohol is also produced, about as much as you get from ripe fruit or yeast bread.

glass full of sparkling, fermented lemonade in a glass jar decorated with a slice of lemon and some mint. — *Make fizzy lemonade*

This results in a less sweet soda that’s full of probiotic activity. Just the thing you want to feed your gut. And in the process you get a super refreshing fizz in your drink.

Cautions:

Do burp your bottles once a day to release some pressure. It is possible for the bottles to explode if pressure builds up too high. So just to be on the safe side, open your bottles quickly to let a little of the fizz out and close them back up. Press down on the lid while opening.

Probiotic sodas are considered non-alcoholic, but they have in fact a very low percentage of alcohol. Generally under 1 percent, which is no more than you find in yeast breads or very ripe fruit. They do have the potential for higher alcohol content if you add more than a tablespoon of sugar per pint of soda and let it ferment longer. This turns your soda basically into wine. The trick is to keep your sugar content on the low side and to refrigerate your soda once it has enough fizz. Refrigeration will almost stop the fermentation and the development of more alcohol.

Making Soda From Juice Or Tea

To make your own soda, follow the instructions for fermented lemonade. For various flavor options, replace the lemon and water with your choice liquid, such as fruit juices. I would dilute them with a little with water and omit adding extra sugar if they are very sweet.

You can also use any kind of black, green or herbal tea.

Another possibility is to blend some fruits or infuse whole berries in water, add sugar and starter in a vented mason jar. Don’t close the lid too tight, so gasses can escape. Now wait till it all starts to bubble. Then strain out the berries or pulp and pour the liquid into a fermentation bottle for a final ferment to build up the fizz, which should only take another day or two.

About Making Root Beer

glass with ginger ale in a person's hand. — *Homemade Ginger Beer*

If you are thinking of making a root beer, turmeric, or ginger beer, you’ll want to prepare a simple syrup made by simmering the roots, rhizomes, or barks in water with some sugar (about 1-4 tablespoon per pint of liquid depending on your preference).

For precise instructions, follow my recipe for ginger beer and in place of the ginger, use the roots or bark and seasonings of your choice in the syrup.

Traditional Root and Bark Choices

Ginger
Turmeric
Sarsaparilla
Sassafras
Dandelion root
Birch bark
Licorice
Burdock root
Chicory root
Wild cherry bark
Pine bark and pine needles

The Root Beer Dilemma

Traditionally sarsaparilla and sassafras were the main ingredients to make root beer along with some other flavorings. But the FDA deemed sassafras unsafe due to some lab results that showed liver damage in rats after injecting them with large quantities of safrole, an active constituent in sassafras.

This ingredient can also be found in nutmeg, cinnamon and other herbs. As a result of the lab study, the FDA required all root beer manufacturers to stop using sassafras in root beer. So they they started using wintergreen or artificial flavoring instead (is this going to be better for our liver?).

Just for comparison, for the human equivalent of the amount of safrole that was fed to the rats, we’d have to consume 32 twelve ounce bottles of root beer per day. Besides that, injecting this isolated compound is really not at all like taking the whole herb by mouth. Another one of those unfortunate interventions that are based on overreaction, like is so often the case, while artificial food colorings, PFAs, harmful pesticides and other harmful additives are still FDA approved and in circulation.

My opinion: artificial ingredients are unlikely to be healthier for us, and in my opinion it is unlikely that one or two root beers a day, which contain sassafras, would cause problems. But consider yourself warned, and if you want to make a traditional root beer, be sure to do your own research! There are many recipes for root beer flavorings, here is one by the wellness mama.

Other root beer ideas, using a simmered syrup

I like combinations like ginger and turmeric with pepper and sometimes I add some dried cayenne peppers too for a nicely spicy drink.

Burdock root was very popular for root beer in England.

Dandelion root is often added to root beer combination brews as well.

Birch bark and wild cherry bark used to be very popular many decades ago.

These are not roots, but you could also add dried mushrooms to the simmering syrup, or elderberries, which should all be simmered before you use them.

Roots and barks should normally be simmered for most herbal preparations to get more of the benefits extracted.

Your Questions Answered

You sure can. While I have not tried others aside from ginger, I read that someone used carrots. I don’t know if it worked or not though. But certainly turmeric will work. Just follow the recipe for the ginger bug with the turmeric. You can also use chicory root.

I think any root that is starchy and contains some natural sugars can be used, as long as it’s edible. You can certainly try them. I have thought about trying sweet potatoes, sunchokes, parsnips, parsley root and yellow dock root (this one’s very bitter, but maybe it would make a great tonic water?).

I’m sure that many plants are populated with the organisms necessary to start a fermentation and if they are starchy, they should work well for making a starter bug. This is my own thinking, so I might be wrong, but hey, if you’re like me and like to experiment, I’d love to hear about it if you try other roots or veggies and what your results were. Let us all know in the comments!

There is a chance for contamination if you use dirty utensils or if you have some undesirable bacteria in your environment that might take over before the good bacteria does. Cross contamination can also occur if you don’t use a lid and are making sourdough or cheese nearby.

Use the fresh dandelion root for to keep feeding good bacteria and fresh nutrients continually, this should help to minimize malfunctions. Your dandelion bug needs both dandelion root and sugar for food and nutrients.

Keep your jar sealed to avoid things from the outside coming in.

Beware of chlorine in water. Be sure that your tap water is filtered or left out uncovered for at least 24 hours for the chlorine to evaporate. It is best not to use chlorinated water in the first place. Chlorine will kill the culturing bacteria.

Direct sunlight can sterilize your ginger bug. So keep it out of the sun in a shaded corner.

This is a legit question and the short answer is Yes. Any fermented sodas will have some alcohol content.

Alcohol in common foods

Just for comparison purposes, so does our daily food. Fresh ripe fruits contain a small amount of alcohol, bananas for example have 0.2-0.4% ABV. Yeast bread can have between 1.18 and 1.28%, which actually surprised me, I expected it to be much lower because of the baking process. Yogurt or Kefir can have .05-2%, condiments like mustard and soy sauce 1.5-2% (source).

My Thoughts About Alcohol in fermented sodas

So, let me give a more detailed answer to the question of whether your sodas contain alcohol, because it certainly does since it undergoes fermentation. However, the alcohol content can greatly fluctuate depending on how long it is fermented and how much sugar was used in the fermentation.

I’ll share some of what I found when researching this. I do not like to consume alcohol in excess and so I was curious about it and maybe you are too. I don’t see alcohol as evil, but as with all things, too much of it can ruin your health and it can be addictive to some people.

Growing up in Germany, having a sip of wine or beer with meals was normal, even for children, and so it is in many countries, and has been throughout history. Fermentation imparts healthy properties and kills undesirable germs. Often a fermented beverage is safer to drink in some countries than plain water.

Some real numbers

To give you some numbers, I searched around and found that approximately 1 tablespoon of sugar per pint of soda would yield approximately 1% alcohol, which is very little and even a couple of bottles of this soda won’t intoxicate a person. However many recipes call for up to 4 tablespoons of sugar per pint and this is enough to make an 8% ABV alcoholic beverage within 4 weeks of fermenting.

Here is how much 4 tablespoons of sugar per pint of soda will yield during fermentation (many other things play a factor as well, for example adding fresh fruit with high sugar content, will increase the potential for more alcohol after several days of fermenting, and speed up the alcohol production. Temperature also plays into how fast your fermentation comes along.

But let’s look at the following numbers measured in homemade ginger ale at average room temperature, where 4 tablespoons of sugar were used per pint of ginger ale. This information is from a video by the fermentation adventure:

Day 1: 0.26%
Day 2: 0.79%
Day 3 and day 4: 1.31%
Day 5: 1.58%
Day 6 and day 7: 2.36%
After 2 weeks: 5.5%
After 3 weeks: 6.8%
After 4 weeks: 7.9%

I was glad to find some real numbers, since I have been wondering about it for years. In case that you want to test your own, you can get an hydrometer to measure your brewed sodas if you are concerned.

The sediment you will find at the bottom of fermented beverages can contain several things. There are naturally occuring particles from the ingredients that settle to the bottom. Then you might have bacteria and yeasts that have done their job and have ‘retired’. You may also find minerals from the sugar or other ingredients settling.

Brewers often siphon the clear liquid out to leave the sediment behind. Apparently it can give a wine an off-flavor after aging it. And so it is not desirable and it can look unsightly, especially if the wine is sold commercially.

However, there are nutrients, flavor and good-for-you things in that sediment and so I like to keep it in my sodas.

If I were to make wine, I would not like to include it and I’d use the sediment in bread baking. I found a few years ago that it can actually create a sourdough starter. So don’t throw it away, but if you don’t want to eat it, it also makes a great compost accelerator.

Yes it does. I try to feed it about every other day or daily if I think about it while it’s on the counter. But if you forget for a few days it’s not a huge deal normally, just feed a little extra when you remember.

If you don’t want to make soda for a while, you can put your dandelion bug into the refrigerator. I’ve kept mine in there for several months during the winter and it woke right back up when I brought it out. It’s best though, to feed it every 2-4 weeks while it’s in your fridge, just to give it some fresh nutrients to keep your bug healthy.

If you decide you want to make a soda, just take the bug out of your refrigerator, measure out what you need and put it back after a feeding.

I use a tight fitting, but not air-tight, plastic lid that won’t corrode or leave rust spots. Don’t seal the jar, but keep it screwed so you don’t get undesirable critters to get into your ginger bug. Everything you need to make the ferment is in your jar and if you stir at every feeding, you’ll add enough oxygen for the yeasts to be happy.

I never use a cloth top for getting my bugs started or for maintaining them. The microbes are happy enough, locked into the jar. I would worry that molds and other airborne bacteria could interfere, or contaminate my bug. Cross contamination can occur even if you use different starter cultures at one time or if you’re making cheese or bread with sourdough.

Hands down, the best bottles are grolsch type beer brewing bottles. They produce the best carbonation by sealing the CO2 inside the bottle. Most screw lids might work, but they will let some CO2 escape.

Canning jars should not be used for pressurizing. They might explode because they are not designed for this type of pressure.

I don’t like using plastic, but you can use plastic soda bottles that were made for being under pressure, such as from seltzer water or sodas.

You could also try reusing those nice glass kombucha or water kefir bottles or glass seltzer water bottles.

The color of the bottles doesn’t matter, since you’re not storing your sodas on the counter long-term. Brown bottles keep sunlight out, but you can just leave your bottles in a shady spot to to achieve the same. Brown bottles are more important for brewing long-fermented beverages such as beer or wine.

I don’t. The good bugs in the starter are capable of crowding out a small number of bad bugs that might be in your bottle. As long as you start with clean bottles, washed with hot soapy water, rinsed well and air dried upside down, you should be just fine using them as is.

When you sterilize, as soon as you take your bottles out of the hot oven or water bath, they’ll be repopulated with native airborne bacteria instantly, so I don’t see the point. Besides, your ingredients aren’t sterile either.

You could keep it going indefinitely, just keep feeding fresh dandelion root and sugar regularly and keep it refrigerated when you don’t have time for it.

Yes, however, the process will slow down considerably. It can last for years in the refrigerator, but it is best consumed within 6 months, because the sugars in your soda will continue to get eaten, it will become less sweet, and you may have some more fizz building up over the months, so burp the bottle occasionally even in the refrigerator.

My Final Thoughts

pint jar with a very bubbly dandelion bug

If you followed these instructions, you are looking at a mighty fine, wonderful new critter that can give you years of dedicated service. All you need to do is feed it and keep it happy. Then it will make lots of super delicious sodas for you and your family.

Making your own sodas with your dandelion bug is super rewarding and a hugely superior alternative to commercial sodas. Now you can replace a high sugar, GMO-laden, dead soda that often contains unpronounceable ingredients and artificial colors and flavors.

Instead you’ll enjoy a pleasant, refreshing, less sweet, sparkling soda that is full of probiotics and beneficial microorganisms. These will populate your gut microbiome, improve your gut health, add extra vitamins and minerals, and often health benefits from the ingredients used, such as when making ginger beer or turmeric beer. This to me is a no-brainer. Home brewed fermented sodas, using a probiotic starter such as the dandelion bug, gets my vote in a healthy heartbeat!

If you have any questions, leave me a comment and I’ll do my best to answer quickly. Let me know how it went, if you made this recipe, and how much you love your homemade sodas!

Don’t forget to sign up for more recipes like this as well as homesteading tips and ideas and you’ll get notified by email as I get new information posted!

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Berkey filter
Grolsch type bottles
Evaporated cane juice
Sucanat (Panela sugar, Jaggery)
Coconut sugar

dandelion bug starter culture in a pint jar

How To Make A Dandelion Bug

Food For Life Garden

A dandelion bug starter culture is a probiotic fermentation of the dandelion root, which can be used to make delicious, fizzy homemade sodas.

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 15

Total Time 5 15

Course Drinks

Servings 1 pint