Comments on: What’s So Great About Water Kefir?

By: David

David — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 08:34:15 +0000

Hi… I was wondering as I have been making water kefir for awhile now, a few weeks. Love it. But want to play with the flavor. Im on low sugar diet, blood sugar issues, so I know that the grains eat the sugar made in the sugar water, so after the first round of fermentation, for a secondary ferment, if I wanted to add say orange juice fesh squeezed or any other fruits juice, will the bacteria consume the sugars in that as well? All of the sugars? Even with the grains removed?

Also if one was to add orange juice, how much would you add? So I have 4 cups of water, that I use for the 1st round of fermentation with the grains in it, once I remove grains and want to add oj, how much actual oj goes into the jar to secondary ferment for 2 days?

Thanks much

By: Courtney

Courtney — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 22:36:07 +0000

Unfortunately, water kefir grains don’t multiply very fast, so it is harder to find them from friends or family.
LOL! I must be doing something wrong. I received both milk and water kefir grains (1/4 cup each) on the same day and exactly 3 weeks later I had 1 1/4 cups of milk kefir grains and 2 quarts of water kefir grains. Some batches of water kefir double daily, my milk kefir doubles weekly. I wonder what to do with the extra grians they are taking over.

By: Jenn Neddo

Jenn Neddo — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 14:25:57 +0000

I have tons of water kefir grains to share if anyone is interested. email me at jneddo76 at yahoo dot com with your address. —Jenn

By: Wardeh

Wardeh — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 14:21:13 +0000

Jaimieis - Yes, I have. Usually it means the grains aren't thriving and the organism balance is off. You should rinse that slime off very well, and I would recommend adding minerals to your water kefir batches. I use these mineral drops and they saved my grains: liquimins. Give the grains a few batches to come round, rinsing them as necessary to remove the slime. Also - are you using a muslin bag? I have seen slime when using bags, too, as sometimes the grains get stifled and can't circulate freely as they would like. I am a bag-user proponent for the sake of convenience, but I also recommend to get rid of it fast if you think for any reason that it is hampering the grains.

By: Jaimeis

Jaimeis — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 04:00:45 +0000

Wardeh

Have you heard of water kefir grains getting a film or granular “slime” to them? My grains have been in use for almost 2 weeks, I only ferment for 48 hours and transfer them to another quart of water with sucanant. I keep them at room temperature, the resulting beverage still tastes the same, but I feel like my grains are smaller and I’m losing them.

Thanks,

Jaime

By: whatsmixing.com » Water Kefir

whatsmixing.com » Water Kefir — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 02:41:46 +0000

[...] day. The benefits of water kefir to your gut and immune system are many – check them out here and here (so much more than sugary or fake sugary sodas, which have nothing in them that is good [...]

By: Christina Mathewson

Christina Mathewson — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 01:47:12 +0000

Hi Wardeh, I sell water kefir grains in Australia for any Aussies looking to get started with water Kefir.
http://mathewsons-cultures-for-life.webs.com/
Our family had enjoyed it for a while now, for drinking and any time we are feeling under the weather. With 5 small children it’s very useful for when Gastro tries to visit.

By: Anita

Anita — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 04:44:40 +0000

Hi Wardeh,
We’ve started using water kefir in our home and my 3-year-old son loves it. My favourite way to have it is slightly diluted with water, and a squeeze of fresh lemon juice. We’ve also experimented a bit and we really like adding some mandarin peel to the second fermentation, but found it got a bit bitter after a while, so a shorter period is better in our opinion It gives it a lovely subtle mandarin flavour.
We also found we had to acclimatise ourselves to it (to avoid… umm… a quick “cleanse” of the bowels!), starting with small amounts and gradually increasing as we got used to it.

By: Wardeh

Wardeh — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 13:57:55 +0000

Booboo – No, you don’t need to use raw milk for DAIRY kefir. Just don’t use ultra-pasteurized as it cannot support a culture.

The water kefir tastes more like soda than wine, but if fermented long it can have a fermented flavor/smell also.

Probably what you saw at your friend’s was Kombucha — the mother culture looks a big floating mushroom. Water kefir’s mother culture are grains, like small translucent pebbles.

By: Booboo

Booboo — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 20:02:52 +0000

Do you have to use raw milk to make dairy kefir? I am seriously thinking of trying water kefir, but I don’t know what it will taste like or where to get the kefir. Does it taste like wine? How much does the kefir cost?
A friend of mine was making kefir in a large jar on the counter in her kitchen and it looked like it had a large mushroom in it. It totally grossed me out. Your version didn’t weird me out as much and I love pop though I’ve found out all the cornsyrup in it is terrible for us.