My Water Kefir

Water Kefir is a delicious way to get some of that good bacteria into your diet.  I have been brewing some water kefir throughout this spring from dehydrated grains.  So far I have gotten wonderful results.  There are many ways I would like to progress in the art of making kefir moving forward.  I have started with a basic method that I will share and with some tasty flavors that have been tested by myself and my husband. So far he doesn't mind.

This morning I awoke and had to change my batch to new sugar water.  I posted some videos of how to start from the beginning with dehydrated grains on my page, but here I will walk you through my own process with pictures.  The videos were made by a great company called Cultures for Health.  This is where I ordered my dehydrated grains:  www.culturesforhealth.com

This is what my beautiful kefir grain water looked like this morning.  The grains were in the bottom, and they had eaten all the sugar after 48 hours.  Time for a new batch!  Let me show you how it's done in my house.

We need supplies first.  I collected two extra quart mason jars and a strainer.  Make sure you sterilize your jars with some hot water.  You want to start with fresh sterilized jars when you are working with cultures. I got two because I need one for my water kefir that I am going to flavor and one for my new batch of sugar water to feed my kefir grains.

First I strain the sugar water batch that has fermented for 48 hours,.  I have the fermented sugar water in the jar to be flavored and the grains are in a strainer.  I have a stainless steel strainer pictured here.  The preferred strainer for kefir grains would actually be cloth mesh and they have them for sale at Cultures for health.

Here are the beautiful grains, they have been called many things in other cultures and the only one I seem to remember is Japanese Water Crystals.  They do look like water crystals.
I should add that the foreign object that is in there is in fact an eggshell.  After some research there are a few things I do to my water to make the mineral content high for the grains to eat.   There are other methods to getting this desired result once you get your feet wet.

Next I am picking a flavor for my batch that has finished its process.  I picked lemon and fig.  Mmmmm new recipe.   I am using 1/4 cup lemon juice and a handful of dried figs cut in half.  If you were doing lemon on it's own (which is delicious), you could use a full half cup of lemon juice.  I have tried a few I liked.  Lemon, Huckleberry, and dried pineapple (all separately) have been my favorite flavors.

Here are the lemon juice and the dried figs.

This is how it looks once in the jar, just put them in whole.

Lid on and give it a tip to incorporate your new flavor into your batch. This is going to sit for 24 hours to flavor.

I skipped a few pictures, but I will give the directions for your new sugar water.  You want 1/4 cup of high quality sugar with high mineral content.  I used this raw organic sugar, found at Costco.  You could also use or rapadura or molasses.  I boil my tap water to get rid of the chlorine content.  I use the warm water to dissolve the sugar and then fill the rest of the quart jar with cool water with about a 2 inch head space.  I then put in my grains, and secure the top with a coffee filter and a rubber band.  Set in a space out of direct sunlight and away from all other forming cultures at room temp for 24-48 hours.

This is what the color of my lemon and fig batch is after giving it another tip.  Happy brewing!  Feel free to contact me with any questions.