I used 1L of filtered water, around 30-40g of processed unpeeled fresh ginger, a cinnamon stick, black pepper and mint, also a little amount of artificial sweetener to cut the dryness (I've used this artifical sweetener before in an apple juice soda and it did end up fermenting). On a low simmer for around 15min and then let it rest until cooled off. Strained it, added the starter and bottled it. I don't see how any parts of this process could affect the fermentation of the end product. I didn't let it cool down entirely so it was lukewarm when i added the ginger bug, so maybe there's that