I truly appreciate the help I've received here, and have happily been making ginger beer for several weeks. I do have some more questions, which I’ve put in bold below:

1. I have a couple of completed ginger bugs to convert to ginger beer. Per the recipe, I need to mix the bug with non-chlorinated water, sugar, and more ginger. My question is whether the additional ginger, which will make up the bulk of the ginger in the recipe, should be organic. Usually what I do to add the additional ginger is to mix it with the non-chlorinated water in a blender, this makes it much easier to pour through a funnel and into a plastic soda-water bottle.

I know that a lot of recipes say to make ginger tea by boiling ginger (they also don't specify organic v. non-organic), water, and sugar into a 'tea', but I like to put in ground-up ginger to ferment, and then strain it.

So far, I’ve been letting the ginger mix (bug, water, sugar, ginger) ferment for 3-4 days, but I’m going to try letting it ferment longer (a week) and see what happens.

1. I’ve been using 2.1 liter/2 quart plastic bottles, the kind that plain or flavored soda water (not soda like Coke or Mountain Dew, but carbonated water) comes in. Usually, I close the bottle with the cap it came with after I mix up the bug and other ingredients in it. I burp the bottle (let the air out) every day or two. My question is, should I let all of the excess air out of the bottle or just some of it? So far I’ve been letting out all the air (until the hissing sound of air escaping stops), but now I’m starting to think maybe I shouldn’t do that.

The other option I’ve tried is putting a balloon over the soda bottle top instead of using the cap. Some recipes say to put a pinhole (or two) in the balloon, others say not – which is correct? After a couple of days, the balloon starts to fill with air (the excess air?) and grow. So far I’ve decanted the beer after a couple of days when the balloon is about 1/3 blown up. What I plan to do with the next batch is to leave it for a week, after which I believe the balloon will be entirely blown up, and then decant it. Does this make sense?

1. Is there anything wrong with adding a small amount of yeast to the bug/water/sugar/ ginger mix I put in the bottle to ferment? I want to be sure that fermentation takes place, otherwise I just end up with sour-tasting ginger water. But I won’t do it if it’s a bad idea for some reason.

I apologize for the wordiness of the questions; one thing I’ve found is that a lot of the recipes aren’t very precise or are difficult to follow, so I want to be sure that it’s clear what I’m asking.

I’ve been keeping track of what I do and how the beer turns out, next time I write I’ll give the results – I want to make a few more batches first so I have sufficient data. (I feel like a scientist writing this – I’m not).

Thanks again!