Lately, I've been very interested in fermented foods. They are all the rave on the internet and I've always enjoyed the store bought Kefir by Liberte. At one point it got to be too much to spend 4/5 dollars a week to buy a small container of kefir. I decided I needed to make my own and started my search for Kefir grains. Low and behold, a long lost friend (thank goodness for facebook!) was also into Kefir and she kindly shared some of her grains with me. So far, I've had some difficulty making my milk kefir. It tastes kefirish, but it does not have any fizz and sometimes it's much too sour. I suppose I have not been the most consistent with taking care of it either. So I've decided to really try and take good care of the milk Kefir grains and hope that they will one day repay me with fizz. Funny thing is I know my kefir is alive and well because it multiplies quickly and produces a lot of Kefirin. I often wonder if I am missing some important yeasts that produce large amounts of Co2. Anyhow, due to the excess kefir grains, I gave some of to a friend. I taught her how to make the kefir as I did and hers comes out slightly carbonated. So, I am thinking also it might just be the environment. Her home is much warmer than mine.
Not long ago (maybe 3 months ago), I also discovered water kefir grains. I was reluctant to try these grains as the instructions on the internet seemed a bit more complicated than making milk kefir. However, as I read on more, my interest increased so I ordered some online and got it recently in the mail. I ordered them from the Kefir Lady (www.kefirlady.com) and it came dehydrated. When they arrived they reminded me of small pieces of rock sugar. I instantly putthem in water and sugar and within 2 hours they looked about the size shown in many pictures on the internet. They had rehydrated beautifully. The first batch took 5 days or so to brew. That first batch I threw out, however the next batch fermented quickly and within two days I had a slightly carbonated yellow liquid. Today was the first day I bottled up the water kefir for it's secondary fermentation (for that extra fizz). I tasted it and it had a very nice, slightly sweet, fruity taste with a light fizz. It's much easier to drink than milk kefir. Tomorrow night I will put it in the fridge and ferment for several more days before I drink it. I was so happy that it was carbonated. It was also as easy as pie to make: add sugar, water, egg shell, fig and grains. The grains seemed to have doubled already. I'm not sure they really had or if my eyes were just fooling me. But if they had doubled, soon I'll have enough water kefir grains to share and experiment with.
Since the water kefir has been so successful I started to read up on Kombucha. I had always thought Kombucha looked kinda nasty and it also looked a little complicated because it took so long to brew and because usually the brews I saw on the net were so big. However, after some research I realized it didn't seem so hard. I checked and saw that on Craigslist someone was offering free kombucha scoby's (symbiotic colonies of bacteria and yeast) so I emailed them. I'll keep you all posted on how that turns out.
Also, today was the first day I made raw almond milk. That was the easiest thing I've ever done. It's great because now I can make exactly the amount I want. I rarely drink milk and I always end up throwing all my almond milk away whenever I did buy it . What a waste. So today I made about 4 cups of almond milk. I drank one cup. Saved another cup for lunch tomorrow, and put the rest in with some kefir grains to ferment. I read that fermented almond milk was a great treat. Let's see how that will turn out tomorrow.
It's a day for many firsts. In the meantime, I will try many different methods to increase carbonation in my milk kefir. I don't think I will be satisfied until that happens. Hopefully I'll find the magic key to making my milk kefir sparkle.
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