As promised, I am at long last reporting on my adventures with "Water Kefir" grains. These grains differ from milk kefir in that they grow on sugars, and not milk. They multiply very rapidly, but the "grains" do not increase in size individually. They just increase in number.
They are very easy to tend and make a wonderful healthy probiotic drink. Here is what I do:
Day 1: Place grains in quart jar. Add 2 Tablespoons raw honey, one slice of lemon (I peeled off the outer zest as my lemons are not organic) a dried fig or a few raisins in a little cloth bag, and 2 cups of chlorine-free (CL) water. Stir with a plastic spoon. Water Kefir does not like metal. I cover it with a plastic sprouter lid that I have (not necessary, just very covenient) and a coffee filter held on with a rubber band. Set it on the counter.
Day 2: After 24 hours I take off the coffee filter and drain the Kefir water into another jar. Then I remove the plastic lid and use CL water to rinse the grains and strain again.
At this point, I add 2 Tablespoons of Sucanat (another brand is Rapadura), 2 cups of CL water, stir, and cover as before.
Each day it needs to be drained, rinsed and fed. The grains will multiply rapidly and you can share, freeze, compost, sell or toss the extras.
Put your kefir water into the fridge in a covered glass jar if you are not going to use or drink it right away.
But my favorite thing is to make homemade soda pop! See the two capped bottles in the picture up there? I do it like this: Pour kefir water into a jar or bottle that has a tight lid. Add half as much fruit juice. Let it sit, tightly covered for 12 to 18 hours (taste to see what pleases you) and then keep it in the fridge.
One of our daughters is making this soda and her children love it! And I really enjoy having "pop" that I know is healthy and loaded with probiotics.
I have had good success with orange juice so far. Grape juice seems to be better after a couple of days in the fridge. This is still an experiment and I will report back if I make any progress.
Some people use the water from young green coconuts to brew their kefir. It sounds lovely to me, but I do not yet have access to any coconuts. You can also use plain table sugar. There is a lot more to be known about this, and I urge you to do some reading on Dom's site here: http://users.sa.chariot.net.au/~dna/Makekefir.html
The slotted spoon contains a few of the grains for you to see.
UPDATE!!!
Since this original post, I have discovered that I have to use flip-top bottles to make the kefir soda-pop. Nothing else will keep the fizz in for long. Here are the kind I use now:
I also have gone to feeding just Sucanat to my water kefir grains ~ 1/4 cup per quart with non-chlorinated water. It is much easier than what I used initially.
That's really interesting. I will definitely have to try it!
ReplyDeleteInteresting set up. I'm so low tech, hee hee. I keep the grains in a muslin sack so I don't have to strain... just lift the sack and put it in a clean jar. We use raw sugar for ours, and I almost always do the first ferment for a couple of days (this increases the fizz factor, decreases the sugar, and works well for someone like me who just, uh, forgets that the jars are in the cabinet!)
ReplyDeleteI also add a piece of eggshell to the first ferement... the calcium is good for the grains.
My fav combo for kefir soda is pineapple blueberry... I use a bit of the juice from the pineapple can, a half a cup of chunked pineapple, and a half a cup of blueberries. Yum! But watch out... it stains (like when a bottle of super fizzy soda explodes all over your ceiling... we're still trying to figure out how to get the purple spots off the ceiling!)
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ReplyDeleteDid you use frozen orange juice? This seems interesting. I may have to give this a try.
ReplyDeleteYes. It is reconstituted frozen orange juice. Too bad I don't live where I could grow an orange tree!
ReplyDeleteYou are so adventurous! Love this new experiment. I just haven't gotten brave enough to try kefir of any kind yet. I love it from the store, though!
ReplyDeleteI recently purchased some water kefir grains. Thanks for the instructions.
ReplyDeleteWater kefir soda is my latest obsession. My kids and I just enjoyed "grape soda" made with some fantastic raw grape juice that I was able to get my hands on. YUM! But be careful, this was my second bottle that got so carbonated that it literally exploded all over my kitchen counter and floors! It was sure fun to watch though! I just started making it last week and we are having a good time with it. Next up in orange. I love all your articles on kefir! Can't wait to read through them.
ReplyDeleteOh, yes, Jennie! I've had that happen too, and it seems to be related not only to the time of the second ferment, but also the temperature in the house. When I do grape soda now, I actually leave the flip top bottles slightly open until I am ready to refrigerate them. :) Thank you for your kind remarks.
ReplyDeleteMaybe this is a dumb question...Are your water kefir grains from your original milk kefir grains? I make kefir with raw cow's milk (I would really like to try raw goat's milk, but haven't been able to find a source around here.) Anyway, I just wanted to know if I could use the kefir grains I already have [when they grow a bit more. I still don't have much yet :)] Or if you recommend buying some water kefir grains. I know there can be a transition period when you switch milks. But I'd like to try it out. I would also like to give coconut water a try...eventually :)
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