Fermenting Adventures: Water kefir grains are multiplying!

Earlier this week, my daughter and I consumed a bottle of kefir. That was an apple kefir and my daughter loved that a lot. It’s “lighter” than the kombucha. It looks like she’ll stick to the water kefir while I happily swap between the two.

Initially, I wasn’t seeing any growth with my water kefir grains, but four days after receiving the grains, I’m thrilled to say that they are multiplying! I’m thinking that changing the location of my water kefir grains made all the difference! Of course… I can’t show you how the grains originally looked since I did not think to take a before picture of my water kefir grains. However, moving forward, I promise I’ll start documenting the progress.

Initially, this sieve wasn’t overflowing with water kefir grains, but look at it now! It’s so nice that this healthy bacteria is very active. Because of how healthy my water kefir is doing, I was able to make three bottles from one quart of water kefir grains. This is an advanced post. It was written yesterday, 10/27/14. 

What you’re looking at above is the second ferment. These bottles will be ready to consume in about 14 hours. I still have them setting out in a warm spot, but after 12 hours, I’ll move them to the refrigerator. They will still ferment in the refrigerator, but at a much slower rate. Curious as to what flavors that are featured in the above picture? Starting from left to right, the first is a combination of the kefir water, apple juice and a tiny amount of hibiscus tea. The middle bottle is plain kefir water… which I find to be quite yumalicious and the last bottle is kefir water, hibiscus tea and a small amount of organic apple juice.

Of course, I went through the simple process of making my water kefir again, which simply meant adding water (just shy of one quart) to my mason jar. I also added 1/4 cup of organic sugar. This is much simpler than the other water kefir bases I’ve made. I figured since my Big Berkey leaves the minerals in the water there was really no need to add more to the water and so I left out the egg shells, pinch of Himalayan sea salt and Blackstrap molasses.

Have I noticed any positive effects from drinking the natural water kefir soda? I think so… it has been touted to be great for gut health and I can tell you that first thing this morning I did have to have a bowel movement.  No need to be grossed out by that, it’s a natural bodily function. Perhaps if people talked more about colon health, we would not see the many diseases/deaths related to digestive issues. Just something to think about… 😉