| We're all about the local, foraged and home grown here and you can't get much more local or home grown (possibly even slightly foraged!) than this treat of a drink. We enjoy it with meals or on its own, sometimes flavoured or diluted with something else but mostly just as it comes. It's a tasty drink in its own right but I have also been known to use it to soothe my stomach in times of digestive distress. I also consider it a preventative measure to keep my gut in good health, as well as a remedy for when things are a little out of balance. This is water kefir, a yeasty*, symbiotic bacterial culture of an indeterminate composition, depending upon your source, and it lives on the shelf in the kitchen above the bread machine. It requires minimal care and interaction, in fact I've come to the view that it rather thrives on neglect. It's certainly an introvert. You may have encountered kefir as a fermented, probiotic milk drink (which, incidentally, it's perfectly possible to make with plant milks), and this is its watery cousin. Personally, I prefer it as I'm not a great milk drinker and once you've got a healthy culture it's almost free to maintain (bar the cost of some sugar and the energy to boil some water). |  |
I once had a kombucha scoby (that's another kind of bacterial colony that likes to drink tea instead of water or milk), which looked like something from a sci fi film or the shelves of the Huntarian collection but was also an enjoyable way of introducing some healthy bacteria to the microbiome. It was pretty easy to care for but I know of no fermentation** easier than good old water kefir. There are a plethora of instructional videos and web pages online that will instruct you in the correct care of kefir, but I inherited my knowledge as I inherited my culture and with a little bit of trial and error, as well as the occasionally neglectful 'oh, great, I didn't kill it!', this is how I have learned to care for ours. If you don't know someone who can gift you some kefir 'babies', you can order them online, in which case I would suggest following the instructions that come suited for your particular culture. But here's what I do, to give you an idea if you're considering introducing kefir to your home brew options!
| | To begin with, there are a couple of basic principles I was given when I first started kefir care:
I have since discovered:
In fact, in our cold cottage kitchen, far from the optimistic five to seven days I was first instructed, we now prefer to give it between eighteen days to three weeks, but sometimes I forget and overshoot a bit. However you time it, today was Kefir Day so I thought I'd celebrate with a little article! |
One of the reasons I find it easy to accidentally miss the intended date of bottling the kefir is that I do stick to the instructions I was given about only using boiled water. Of course, to use freshly boiled or even hot water would kill the bacteria, in fact, I guess the reason for boiling it is to ensure you've only got the 'friendly' stuff, so you need to plan ahead at least as far as the time it takes for boiling water to become tepid. Ideally, I do it the night before and leave the water in a covered jug until the morning but I'm just not always that organised!
You can flavour your kefir by making an infusion at the point of boiling the water. Those dusty old fruit tea bags languishing at the back of the cupboard would work very well, as do ginger and subtle herbs like bay. I've experimented with various flavourings but recently I've decided I just like plain old kefir... You'll want to go through your own process of trial and error with that one! Once the water (or infusion) is cool, it's time to bottle the previous batch. As the kefir cultures all hang out at the bottom, it's quite easy to just pour most of the fermented liquid off the top but I find pouring it into a jug before approaching the bottles is by far the best technique for doing that, else I tend to spill a lot! I don't sterilise the bottles but of course you want to make sure they're good and clean. This is another opportunity to add flavouring by adding aromatic ingredients (such as rosemary sprigs or lavender flowers) to the bottle; but to be honest, I'm not sure how much of an effect that has on the shelf life of the drink and anyway, I like it plain!
When I've (mostly) emptied the kefir jar it's simply a case of dumping six tablespoons of sugar on to the little gelatinous kefir babies in their remaining yeasty soup and then pouring the cooled water straight on top. The lid goes on, I date the jar with both today's date and the rough date I think it'll be ready on and then it goes back on the shelf to be forgotten about for another 3 weeks! I've not yet established how long the bottled kefir lasts once it's been filtered off the culture but that's because we're only really able to make about a litre and a half at the moment, which we've usually drunk before the next batch is ready! Going forward, I'm hoping the culture will grow enough that I'll be able to split it and get a second one on the go. Since we've got a cool kitchen it's not been growing very fast, but I gave it a little extra attention today and strained off more of the cloudy, yeasty goop at the bottom to establish that it has grown a bit over the months I've had it. I'm hoping with a little patience and a few more months we might well be able to stagger the bottlings and add even more probiotic tastiness to our lives!
You can flavour your kefir by making an infusion at the point of boiling the water. Those dusty old fruit tea bags languishing at the back of the cupboard would work very well, as do ginger and subtle herbs like bay. I've experimented with various flavourings but recently I've decided I just like plain old kefir... You'll want to go through your own process of trial and error with that one! Once the water (or infusion) is cool, it's time to bottle the previous batch. As the kefir cultures all hang out at the bottom, it's quite easy to just pour most of the fermented liquid off the top but I find pouring it into a jug before approaching the bottles is by far the best technique for doing that, else I tend to spill a lot! I don't sterilise the bottles but of course you want to make sure they're good and clean. This is another opportunity to add flavouring by adding aromatic ingredients (such as rosemary sprigs or lavender flowers) to the bottle; but to be honest, I'm not sure how much of an effect that has on the shelf life of the drink and anyway, I like it plain!
When I've (mostly) emptied the kefir jar it's simply a case of dumping six tablespoons of sugar on to the little gelatinous kefir babies in their remaining yeasty soup and then pouring the cooled water straight on top. The lid goes on, I date the jar with both today's date and the rough date I think it'll be ready on and then it goes back on the shelf to be forgotten about for another 3 weeks! I've not yet established how long the bottled kefir lasts once it's been filtered off the culture but that's because we're only really able to make about a litre and a half at the moment, which we've usually drunk before the next batch is ready! Going forward, I'm hoping the culture will grow enough that I'll be able to split it and get a second one on the go. Since we've got a cool kitchen it's not been growing very fast, but I gave it a little extra attention today and strained off more of the cloudy, yeasty goop at the bottom to establish that it has grown a bit over the months I've had it. I'm hoping with a little patience and a few more months we might well be able to stagger the bottlings and add even more probiotic tastiness to our lives!
*If you're treating any yeast infection or have been sensitive to yeast in the past, best not take water kefir.
**The fermentation process does produce a small amount of alcohol so if you need to avoid it, this isn't for you! Xx
**The fermentation process does produce a small amount of alcohol so if you need to avoid it, this isn't for you! Xx
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