Eww, what is kefir WATER grains you ask.
Well, first of all I want to make the distinction between water kefir and milk kefir.
Milk kefir is a beverage made by fermenting milk. Think liquid yogurt if you will. Milk kefir is made with a yeast/bacterial fermentation starter also known as "grains". This process results in a pro-biotic drink full of vitamins, some minerals, and lactic acid bacteria. I will not bore you with an exhaustive list of the benefits of milk kefir. You can do that yourself so check out the internet if you wish to know more :)
Now, let's get to the purpose of this post and talk about water kefir.
Water kefir is also a pro-biotic beverage but without the milk. "What!?, you ask. How is this so. I thought pro-biotic meant milk and dairy."
Well, here's the good news; pro-biotic doesn't always mean milk or dairy. Good news for all of the people who for whatever their reasons may be have made the decision not to consume milk. We can still get healthy pro-biotcs naturally without taking a pill :) This is very good news indeed.
Tibicos aka water kefir is a culture of bacteria and yeasts. Sound familiar? As with kefir grains, the microbes present in tibicos act in symbiosis to maintain a stable culture. Tibicos can do this in many different sugary liquids, feeding off the sugar to produce lactic acid, alcohol (ethanol), and carbon gas, which carbonates the drink. Rest assured, I am not promoting alcoholic beverages or drunkenness :P But we all know the benefits of a glass of wine or an occasional beer. Water kefir offers the many benefits of the good bacteria and yeasts but without the dairy or consuming alcohol. It's all good, folks :) If you wish to learn more you should use the internet to read about the many benefits of water kefir. Start here: http://www.culturesforhealth.com/water-kefir-grains-composition-bacteria-yeast
Water kefir is a cold, fizzy, sweet drink made with fruit or fruit juice and it will, on occasion, smell a tad bit like alcohol. The alcohol content is usually significantly less than one percent depending on how long you leave it to ferment. It's common sense, folks :)
The grains are living organisms so they need to be fed with 1/4 cup of sugar, 1 teaspoon of molasses and fresh water every other day. The photo shows brown sugar but I have been using turbinado. Any sugar will do but both the turbinado and brown sugar contain molasses and the grains love it. It's a shot of minerals to the growing grains. They will grow or multiply like crazy so you will need to either eat them as they are very nutritious and some people put them in their smoothies or you can also keep them in short-term or long-term storage. I won't go into detail in storage know-how in this post as it has become longer than I wanted it to be and I'm getting tired of writing. lol
In addition to eating or storing them you can share :) That is the purpose of this post. I would love to share good health with all of my friends if you have the interest and are game for the offering. The grains are free of charge unless I need to ship them and in that case you will pay the shipping and handling. I am willing to answer any questions you may have in getting you on your way to good health in addition to making different flavors of the fizzy stuff. Did I mention that this beverage can and is used in place of soda pop? My favorite flavors have been grape and apple cider. Peach runs a close third :)
Oh dear me, I just realized that I don't have any photos of straining and making the actual flavored beverage also known as the second ferment. I will take some pics and make another post. *nods*
Water Kefir Grains:
Here's to good health and learning something new everyday. Stay tuned for part two of Water Keifr & Grains~ Lisa
