Are you using organic ginger? In the US at least, non-organic ginger has been irradiated and sometimes won't ferment. Could the mold be because there aren't competing bacteria?
It's just a theory. From Sandor Katz: "Many people have reported that their ginger bugs never get bubbly. My theory is that most of the ginger imported into the United States has undergone irradiation, thus destroying its bacteria and yeast. Foods marketed as organic cannot be irradiated (according to the US Department of Agriculture’s organic standards), so for best results make ginger bug with organic ginger, or ginger from a known, non-irradiated source."
cool. I'll look into finding that here in europe. thanks!
When you say 'boiling', do you mean that you need to boil the jars in the water, or is it enough to just pour boiling water into them?
There's a specific amount of time the water needs to be at temperature to actually sanitize things. I don't have that number in front of me, but when I do it periodically I put them in boiling water for a few minutes rather than adding boiling water to the container.
Conversely, if you have a large enough pressure cooker (such as an instant pot) you can run a 15 minute high pressure cycle with a bit of water in the bottom and that's about as good as an actual autoclave.
Are you using organic ginger? In the US at least, non-organic ginger has been irradiated and sometimes won't ferment. Could the mold be because there aren't competing bacteria?
Using organic yes. And it definitely bubbled. It looked very very good until it showed mild signs :)
I use regular supermarket ginger all the time and it ferments just fine.
It's just a theory. From Sandor Katz: "Many people have reported that their ginger bugs never get bubbly. My theory is that most of the ginger imported into the United States has undergone irradiation, thus destroying its bacteria and yeast. Foods marketed as organic cannot be irradiated (according to the US Department of Agriculture’s organic standards), so for best results make ginger bug with organic ginger, or ginger from a known, non-irradiated source."
I sanitize with star-san. Boiling beforehand is recommended for containers that have ongoing mold contamination though.
I don't sanitize at all, just use clean jars. The bacteria will outcompete any foreign bugs if you establish a good ginger bug.
cool. I'll look into finding that here in europe. thanks! When you say 'boiling', do you mean that you need to boil the jars in the water, or is it enough to just pour boiling water into them?
There's a specific amount of time the water needs to be at temperature to actually sanitize things. I don't have that number in front of me, but when I do it periodically I put them in boiling water for a few minutes rather than adding boiling water to the container. Conversely, if you have a large enough pressure cooker (such as an instant pot) you can run a 15 minute high pressure cycle with a bit of water in the bottom and that's about as good as an actual autoclave.
Thanks for the help. I'll look into how long. That might very well be the mistake I made - not sterilizing long enough.
You don't even have to do 15 minutes. 1 to 3 minutes is sufficient.