Water Kefir

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To promote the beneficial bacteria in my gut,
I use a traditional method of kefir fermentation in sugar water.

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Everything I read tells me two conflicting stories, which I think I can demystify. Yes, they have been all around the world for many centuries. Yes, they probably started in more than one place and are nonetheless very similar if not identical, and yes, the first serious documentation we have is in Mexico of the 1800s.

Since this is a community form of life, composed of species which could easily live alone and spread widely via many methods, it is not surprising the some viable mix of the required circumstances showed up more than once over the course of the last 20,000 years. And, like the recipe for your grandmother's rock hard cookies, finding the documentation centuries later is going to be difficult. Let's just assume they spring up at least once in every culture.

For today, it's easy enough to get information and actually get your hands on the grains, either dried or still growing. Heck, there's a good chance I could send you some. Just give me some time to dry them out and I can mail you a few. That's always been how they've spread, one person hands a few to someone else, like a yogurt culture or a venereal disease. You give it to them, they give it to two people, etc.

So what are they?

My theory is that somehow beer and yogurt mated and some Lactobacteria found that they could get the Yeast to eat sugar and excrete a gel that the bacteria could live in. Milk Kefir is different from water kefir, but I suppose the same kind of thing happened. Once it happens, observant and frugal beermeisters separate them and preserve them for use. What they end up with is something that looks like a little piece of clear lumpy foam gel and is a complex matrix of gel, bacteria and yeast.

How do you grow them?

Put them in some sugar water and it takes off.

Seriously, that's the whole instruction set. They should grow, so you end up with more than you started with. Take them out a day or two later and put some flavoring in the water and drink it if you can have sugar. Use some of the grains for food or dry them for storage. I just grow them to blend into other foods, particularly my mayo, which is much better after a little fermentation on the counter. Then just put the kefir grains in a new batch of sugar water. Like sea monkeys, just watch them grow!

For health purposes, be sure to use good water. I use a mixture of low mineral content white sugar and small amount of high mineral coconut sugar. Use glass containers, stainless steel or nylon tools. Don't cap the container unless you are ready for accidental explosions. After you take the grains out, you can bottle and cap the water like beer and one or two days later they are fermented and bubbly.

I use these latch top jars, because the rubber seal keeps other stuff, unwanted stuff, from getting in. Note that I completely dismantled the latching part. The lid is just sitting there, if any pressure builds up, it burps out easily. It's basically the same method I use for fermenting vegetables, in fact, I use a little kefir water to help kick start the veggies.

I hope I've interested you in growing Kefir, if you have any question I would be happy to discuss things, maybe in SteemTrail's Paleo-Trail discussion group. We are doing a lot of community building over there for people who want a whole foods lifestyle.

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Please try my Future History stories - Enmity

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