[erockrph]

I would also be interested to hear if you try out the concentrates you mentioned.

I'm enjoying this one as we speak:

1/4 cup Da Fruta Passionfruit Concentrate
4 packets True Lime (~juice of 1/2 lime)
70g Turbinado sugar
18oz water

The Da Fruta concentrate recommends a 1:7 dilution with water. This is a little less than that, but with some lime to make up the difference. I think the sweetness is spot-on. I don't get any of the lime. This is basically like drinking sweetened, carbonated passion fruit juice. And there's not a damn thing wrong with that.

Next time, I will up the ratio of lime to passionfruit. I will try to get some real limes and include the zest as well. Drinking this, I think passionfruit lemonade would be amazing. If you like passionfruit, I highly recommend picking up some Da Fruta concentrate and playing around with it yourself. The flavor isn't quite as intense as fresh fruit, but I couldn't imagine dealing with the real deal in any quantity. They run me 3 bucks a pop, and you maybe get an ounce of juice from them.

I feel like I'm really starting to hit my stride with the soda thing. I'm finally getting a handle on the carbonation. And I've found a reliable sweetness level (120g per liter in an acidic beverage, to my tastes). It's getting really fun and easy to crank out a batch. I think I'm going to spring for a few extra carb caps so I can start bringing 20oz bottles to work for lunch, and keep a pipeline of a few batches going.

I have this laying around from IKEA, so something blueberry-lemony is probably up next:

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/10296015/

I haven't tried the blueberry yet, but the lingonberry one is pretty nice.

[Delo]

The passionfruit soda sounds good.   Jarritos soda has some great flavors and pretty much started us on making different kinds.   It is fun and easy.  As my daughter says, you just take juice and carbonate it. It’s not much more than that.  So far we have made lemon-lime, pineapple, grapefruit and ginger ale.  I think we are going to make tamarind soon.
 
Are you still carbing by shaking at 30 psi?  I think I’m giving up naturally carbing because its not worth it, especially with citrus juice based beverages.   I was planning on ordering a few more caps too so I can have multiple bottles instead taking up one of my taps by kegging it.

Sorry for the derail.  To bring it back you could make a blueberry ginger ale.  Blueberries go well with ginger. Are the IKEA syrups made from all fruit?

[erockrph]

The passionfruit soda sounds good.   Jarritos soda has some great flavors and pretty much started us on making different kinds.   It is fun and easy.  As my daughter says, you just take juice and carbonate it. It’s not much more than that.  So far we have made lemon-lime, pineapple, grapefruit and ginger ale.  I think we are going to make tamarind soon.
 
Are you still carbing by shaking at 30 psi?  I think I’m giving up naturally carbing because its not worth it, especially with citrus juice based beverages.   I was planning on ordering a few more caps too so I can have multiple bottles instead taking up one of my taps by kegging it.

Sorry for the derail.  To bring it back you could make a blueberry ginger ale.  Blueberries go well with ginger. Are the IKEA syrups made from all fruit?

The IKEA concentrates are more syrup than a straight fruit concentrate. The Blueberry one contains blueberry juice concentrate, water, sugar, citric acid, and artificial blueberry flavor. It still tastes pretty close to "real" blueberries to me - sort of like blueberry pie filling. I'm not sure if the lingonberry concentrate or elderflower concentrate contain artificial flavor or not. Basically, it makes the cut for a soda ingredient for me, but I wouldn't use it in a beer or mead.

The SNS method of carbonation is working pretty well for me. I still need to dial in the exact amount of carbonation I like, and see if keeping it under refrigeration for a couple of extra days changes the carbonation mouthfeel at all. 20 PSI gives fine, champagne-like bubbles, but isn't quite prickly enough on the tongue to stand up to the fruit-heavy sodas. 30PSI is closer to Alka-Seltzer - lots of big, burp-inducing bubbles. I'm wondering if letting it sit longer may help keep all the carbonation from rushing out so fast on the initial pour. Next batch will target 25 PSI to see if that splits the middle.

I basically hit the half-full bottle with CO2 to pressure, shake until it goes soft, then repeat. Once it stops getting soft after a 30-second shake, I throw it in the fridge for a day. If it's still firm the next day, then I know it's at a stable carbonation and I taste-test.

Blueberry-ginger sounds pretty nice, maybe with some lemon zest in the ginger syrup. I'll put that on the list

[erockrph]

My latest batch finally hit the carbonation level I was shooting for, and I think I've finally hit gold. Here's the details:

100 g diced fresh ginger
60 g turbinado
60 g light brown sugar
12 oz water

This was brought up to a simmer for just over an hour. Once it cooled enough to handle, I poured it through a strainer, and mashed it a bit with the back of a spoon to squeeze out as much as I could. I juiced a lime over this as a filter bed, and sparged the while thing with another 12 ounces of cold water to try to get every last drop of flavor. This got topped off to 1 liter and force-carbed.

Once this finally got carbed up, I knew I finally nailed this. The prickly carbonation takes you right into a deep, lingering ginger heat. Underneath the heat is this great, fresh ginger flavor balanced by a touch of lime and just enough acidity. There is some molasses-y brown sugar flavor, but I think the 50-50 mix with turbinado is the right balance to keep it from being too strong in that area.

It is a sweet soda, but not too much for my tastes (I grew up in a Pepsi household, and this is in a similar ballpark). I would like to try this with a bit less sugar to see how that compares. But otherwise, everything in this recipe is about perfect to my taste buds. That fresh ginger flavor is something I've never gotten from a commercial ginger beer.

As always, I'll keep this thread going as I brew new batches. I think I'm only about one or two batches away from determining a Gold-version recipe. Big thanks to Delo for the simmering suggestion. That made all the difference. Dried ginger was all heat with little flavor, and warm steeping brought a lot of flavor with little heat.

Side note: I've come to the realization that I can force carb way faster if I leave more headspace. It's almost like making a SNS starter in that regard - add CO2, then shake the snot out of the whole thing. I need to start brewing my 1L batches in 2L soda bottles.

I just tried another batch, this time reducing my sugar to 50g each of turbinado and brown sugar, and everything else the same. This version is noticeably drier than the prior versions that use 120g of sugar in total. It is not a huge difference, but I think the ginger heat and lime acidity feel a bit stronger in this version with less sugar for balance. For my tastes, I'm going to go back to the recipe above.

[Delo]

Havent checked this in a while.  I went the opposite direction and cut my sugar down to 50g.  I think with using less sugar and less ginger still makes a good ginger ale and it not totally out of balance.  I’m trying to use as little sugar as I can without it tasting like carbonated ginger water.  I have some spare blueberries around and I may try to use them next time.  I also bought two more carbonator caps. 

[PharmBrewer]

This recipe looks good!

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=141080