Did you know that you can make fizzy soda with pine needles? 🎄
This pine needle soda recipe only requires 3 ingredients: pine needles, sugar, and water.
Simply add a few slices of lemon and some ice cubes, you will get a glass of refreshing and natural carbonated soft drink.🍹
How does pine needle soda taste?
Both Mr He and I were shocked by how refreshing my homemade pine needle soda tasted. This could be the most refreshing drink we have ever had!
Paired with some fresh lemon slices, this sweet and fizzy pine needle soda tasted citrusy with undertones of mint. It tasted a little bit like Sprite but with a more natural smell and flavor.
I think most people, even young kids, will really enjoy this taste!
Can you eat pine needles?
Yes, you can. All pine needles are edible!
Pine needles are often used for brewing pine needle tea. It contains large amounts of vitamin C: a cup of pine needle tea contains 5 times the amount of Vitamin C found in orange juice.
But DO NOT eat pine needles or pine needle drink if you are pregnant.
There was a study found out that “the ingestion of pine needles may play a role in abortion in Korean native cows”.
Important: Before you shop pine needles at natural foods stores, make sure that you don’t accidently recognize these following trees as pine trees:
- Yew Plum Pine or fern pine (Podocarpus macrophylla)
- Norfolk Pine or Norfolk Island Pine (Araucaria heterophylla)
- Cypress (Cupressus) (More on issues of edibility here.)
- Yew (Taxus)
Though some of these trees are referred to as pines, they’re not actually in the same family. You can learn more information about pines from this article.
Leaves from these trees mentioned above are poisonous. So make sure you could confidently identify a tree as a pine tree before eating its needles.
White Pine
Although most pine needles are edible, white pine is considered to be the best tasting one, and it’s very easy to be recognized – the only pine tree that has five needles per bundle.
So if you want to make pine needle soda at home, the safest and easiest way is finding a pine tree that has five needles per bundle. See picture below:
Or you can buy fresh edible pine needles online. Here are some sellers from Etsy.
How does pine needle make soda?
There are wild yeasts living on pine needles. When we feed them sugar, they will consumes it and produces CO2, which can make the water fizzy. So we don’t need to add extra yeasts for making pine needle soda.
To make sure we don’t kill the wild yeasts living on pine needles, we should avoid over washing them or exposing them to extreme heat.
I’d just put the pine needles in a large bowl, fill the bowl with cold water to immerse all the pine needles, and gently rub the pine needles to wash off the dust.
Do not use hot water or boil the pine needles, otherwise the yeasts will die. Repeat for 3 times until there’s no visible dust in the water.
Sunlight Charged Pine Needle Soda
During winter time when it is cold, I like to put the bottle with pine needle soda by a window under sunlight.
According to Times of India, Sunlight charged water is an excellent natural source of Vitamin D. It “has powerful anti-viral, anti-fungal, and anti-bacterial properties, which is great for the body and skin”.
What’s more, I think that the pine needles could keep breathing and produce more CO2 when they are under sunlight.
But when the weather is too hot, you should give the bottle some indirect light, which means that the sun is not directly hitting the bottle and the water temperature should be lower than 86F°/30C°. Otherwise the yeasts living on pine needles will lose their activation.
Flip Top Glass Bottle
Ideally use a flip top glass bottle or a flip top glass jar for this recipe. Do not use a plastic bottle, because the sun will cause plastic to leach chemicals into the water.
The glass used in the manufacture of this bottle is very thick, and it would avoid explosion. The cap of this bottle can securely lock the air.
But since the pine needles in this recipe won’t produce a crazy amount of carbon dioxide within 3 days, you may also use a screw top glass jar or a mason jar.
However, if you use a screw top glass jar or a mason jar, you need to make sure to remember to open the jar on day 3. Otherwise the jar might explode when there’s too much carbon dioxide in the jar.
One last tip before we jump to the recipe!
Do not shake the bottle before you open it!!!
On day 3, I was only able to see some super tiny bubbles in the bottle. I thought there wasn’t too much gas produced. So I gave the bottle a good shake before I opened it.
To my surprise, my homemade pine needle soda made a big explosion at the moment I opened it. That was a big mess!
So, do not shake the bottle even if you can’t observe any bubbles! There should be a great amount of gas dissolved in the water, as long as your bottle is not leaking.
EQUIPMENT you will need:
- Flip Top Glass Bottle (1L size)
INGREDIENTS list:
- 2 cup pine needles
- 2½ cup water (use bottled or filtered water)
- 4 tbsp sugar
Step-by-step INSTRUCTIONS
1. Collect pine needles from white pine trees (* See Note1). Remove woody ends from the pine needles. Put pine needles in a large bowl, immerse them with cold water, wash and drain for 3 times.
2. Spread washed pine needles on a wire rack, let dry on your countertop for about 1 hour.
3. Place pine needles and sugar to a flip top glass bottle (* See Note2).
4. Fill the bottle with filtered or bottled water.
5. Close the lid and give the bottle a good shake, so that the sugar is distributed evenly.
6. In cold weather, you can put the bottle by a window so that the water is under the sunlight. In hot weather, keep the bottle in a bright room but avoid direct sunlight. (*See Note 3)
7. 3 days later, fill a cup with ice cubes and a few slices of lemon. Open the bottle and pour the pine needle soda over the ice cubes. Stir and enjoy.
My other drink recipes you will also like:
Pine Needle Soda Recipe – make natural soda with pine needles
Equipment
- Flip Top Glass Bottle (1L size)
Ingredients
- 2 cup pine needles
- 2½ cup water (use bottled or filtered water)
- 4 tbsp sugar
Instructions
- Collect pine needles from white pine trees (* See Note1). Remove woody ends from the pine needles. Put pine needles in a large bowl, immerse them with cold water, wash and drain for 3 times.
- Spread washed pine needles on a wire rack, let dry on your countertop for about 1 hour.
- Place pine needles and sugar to a flip top glass bottle (* See Note2).
- Fill the bottle with filtered or bottled water.
- Close the lid and give the bottle a good shake, so that the sugar is distributed evenly.
- In cold weather, you can put the bottle by a window so that the water is under the sunlight. In hot weather, keep the bottle in a bright room but avoid direct sunlight. (*See Note 3)
- 3 days later, fill a cup with ice cubes and a few slices of lemon. Open the bottle and pour the pine needle soda over the ice cubes. Stir and enjoy.
Video
Notes
I just made mine and will see how it works out in 3 days! Do you have to drink it in 3 days or can you keep it in your fridge for longer?
We’d better drink it in 3 days, cuz we don’t boil the pine needles to kill the germs. And it has been 3 days~ Let us know your results!
can i use dried pine needle
Can I use small pine needles instead
Yes you can use any type of pine needles. But make sure they are pine trees not yew trees.
No, you can’t use dried pine needle for making soda. Dried pine needles don’t have wild yeasts living on them, so there won’t be bubbles.
can you use a Douglas Fir??
Yes you can use a Douglas Fir. I have successfully made soda using Douglas fir. Just make sure you only use the needles, not the wooden part of the twigs. The soda will have a strong earthy taste if you put the whole twigs into the bottle.
We’re trying this now! How do you get the pine needles back out of the bottle when you’re done?
I just use a pair of long tweezers to get them out~
Can I use boiled (and cooled) water if I don’t want to buy distilled or bottled water?
Yes you can use boiled and cooled water!
Thank you for these instructions! I have seen people make this before but they never provided any indication of a good pine needle to water ratio or how much sugar would be a good amount, so this was very helpful!
Can I use cook pine tree needles for this recipe?
No, we need to use raw pine needles for this recipe. If we cook the pine needles, the wild yeasts leaving on them will die, then there will be no carbon dioxide in the drink, the drink won’t be fizzy later.
Has anyone had luck using honey rather than refined sugar?
I am preparing pine soda with honey as we speak, it already has a nice smell to it. Will update in 3 days when it is done.
I can’t wait to hear how it worked out!
Did it work using honey?
amazing! I just tried it— it tasted delicious!
Yayyy!! So glad it worked haha.
Umm… isn’t this drink alcoholic? Yeast +sugar->alcohol+CO2
[…] needles may even be changed into a carbonated pine soda due to the pure wild yeast on the needles of many […]
Hiya, I am very interested in doing this. Thank you for the recipe 🙂
Are there any risks of bacteria or toxins like botulism?
I tried it two times but no bubbles and no pine flavour.. can you update the recipe with grams? Thanks:)
We just tried our batch. Mild and pleasantly flavored. I’m trying to second batch with the same needles to see if we can reuse them. Fun idea, thanks.!
[…] needles can even be turned into a carbonated pine soda because of the natural wild yeast on the needles of many […]
I love this! But how do you get the needles out of the jars to clean up? 😅
That’s why I won’t put it in those bottles, I will put it in a Wide Mouth Mason jar and put a fermentation lid on it which you can buy at Amazon like I did. That’s how I’ve been doing my needles, and I just got started. After that, I put it in whatever bottle I want. If you have spaghetti sauce jars like Prego or store brand, those fermentation Lids will barely fit those as well. But the Ragu ones won’t work for the fermentation lids because the mouths are smaller.
If you ferment it for longer than recommended, like say 1 or 2 weeks, it that possible, would something bad happen?
Hi, I just want to check if it is normal for the pine needles to turn yellow on day 2. I live in a tropical country and another note is I forgot to shake the bottle 🙁 Thanks for this recipe
Best to make after a wet day when the rain has washed them.
Do not wash you are washing of the natural yeast.
No yeast no bubbles.
Has anyone tried adding fresh raw ginger during the fermentation days? Would this be a way to make a sort of gingerale?
how do I get all the pine needles out of the bottle? I made the soda (accidentally with too much sugar as I didn’t have a measuring spoon set) and also is there anything I can do to lessen the sugar contents as I made that mistake?
What is the range of temperature that it needs to stay in?
I just tried this delitious drink a few days ago👩🏽🍳. I had my children👩🏽🤝👩🏾 try it and now I have to make sure I hide mine so they dont consume it all before I get a chance to drink any🙅🏽♀. I will never buy sprite from the store ever again💸
as others have mentioned, you really do need to make it clear that this is an alcoholic beverage.
Perhaps, however,the amount of alcohol is extremely minimal. Even less than Kvass or homemade root beer. You’d have to drink a lot for effect
it’s not a source of vitamin D, change that. It’s a lie and fake news.
[…] a more natural approach, consider trying out my pine needle soda recipe. Simply combine pine needles, water, and sugar in a flip bottle, then allow it to rest in sunlight […]
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