Monday 11 October 2021

Water Kefir

Lately this has been my activity once every two days - feeding my water kefir grains and bottling/flavoring the water for secondary fermentation.

I had very little knowledge of kefir and had only heard of milk kefir. Thanks to my cousin's wife, Sofia, who gifted my mum a bottle of her homemade water kefir, I was introduced to this probiotic drink.

When I tasted Sofia's water kefir for the first time, I immediately loved it. It was effervescent and had a deep flavor, very much like beer! At the time, I had no idea that what I was drinking was water kefir.


When I asked my mum, she had forgotten what Sofia told her hah..hah... but she managed to ask Sofia and that was how I got into making water kefir.


I did some research on Youtube and I realized that people have been making water kefir ages ago. I am so slow to catch on.

So my first step was to purchase the water kefir grains online. It is quite pricey but I realized that the grains will multiply and I will never run out of water kefir grains.


Let me show you what's in this mysterious jar.


This had been fermenting for approximately 48 hours.


Lots of bubble and it had a nice yeasty aroma. I decided to flavor the water kefir with blueberries and lemon.


I defrosted some frozen blueberries and mashed them to extract the juice.


I did not purposely buy this since this packet was already in my freezer.


Then I poured the blueberry juice into a bottle. I also added the juice of half a lemon.


After that I poured the water kefir into the bottle. I also added some fresh blueberries for good measure.


When fresh fruits are added, the fermentation process speeds up.

I let the bottle stand at room temperature for another 48 hours and I made sure to release the gas once per day. This thing can become very fizzy and I have experienced liquid gushing out of the bottle like champagne.


Time to taste!


Oh! Very nice! But it was not as fizzy as expected because I had already opened the bottle earlier (because I could not resist a taste!).


These are the water kefir grains after I strained off the liquids. It's really very simple to make another fresh batch. 


I am following the supplier's recipe which is 1/3 cup sugar to 800ml water. I am using organic cane sugar and bottled mineral water.


Return the water kefir grains back into the jar (I use the same jar up to two or three times and after that I will start with a clean jar) and pour in the sugar water.


Then cover the jar with a cloth (again I used the same cloth and change when I use a clean jar) and leave to ferment for 48 hours.


This one I flavored with apple juice (2nd fermentation for another 48 hours) and it was very fizzy. Please don't mind the "branded" bottle. I bought this bottle of expensive water (I first got acquainted with this water here . I think it retails at RM9+ and the restaurant charged RM20.00 for it. Tsk!) because I wanted the glass bottle.


I am enjoying making and drinking water kefir. There are a lot of resources out there (some can be confusing) on how to make water kefir and I will do another post on how I handle mine. 

13 comments:

  1. The drinks all look very nice and refreshing.

    The ones my missus made - I asked her already, they were enzymes and the worst was the one with noni. Generally all tasted like rotten fruit...but the noni one was worse, like somebody's vomit. Had to force myself to drink!

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    1. Ah! Enzymes! That was a craze at one time. My cousin's wife was into enzymes too a while back. Rotten fruit? That's what my partner said about my water kefir. LOL!

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  2. Your first pic already got my attention + I love any blueberry flavoured drinks. Wah, nicely served with a wedge of lemon and with a doily underneath some more...like something from a restaurant order...hehehe! ;) I got all excited about this kefir drink and thought I might even want to make (no, just kidding!), erm I mean order this online. Then I reached the paragraph of 1/3 cup sugar to 800ml water...oh no, got sugar one...and quite a lot too (I thought it was a healthy natural drink of some sort), so I guess not! :'(

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    1. Don't be put off by the amount of sugar that goes into the initial ferment. It is food for the bacteria and yeast. At the end of the 2nd fermentation (48 hours initial + 48 hours secondary ferment)the water kefir is barely sweet and is tangy. The sugar is eaten up by the microbes. However, you may find the commercial ones tastes sweeter since they try to make it palatable to the general consumers.

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  3. I didn't even know what is kefir water. Good for health??? Something like enzyme.

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    1. It is a probiotic, so it is good for health. Tasty too like a fizzy drink but it is not as sweet,

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  4. I think I have heard of this from one of my son. It looks and sounds delicious.

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    1. It is a very tasty drink and can be flavored with all sorts of fruit juices.

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  5. Your fruit water kefir looks so refreshingly delicious! I don't dare drink any because I don't know what the kefir grains from Russia since 1884 will do to my body when it is detoxifying it. Is your partner drinking your fruity water kefir too? Adding real fruits to it makes it so very tasty! Thanks for sharing. Cannot wait to read how you make it.

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    1. LOL! So far I have not experienced any bad side effect. My partner drinks it but commented that it taste like rotten fruit which I find perplexing. It tastes really good to me.

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    2. I think your partner hasn't eaten real rotten fruit before. If he has, he would know that rotten fruit tastes totally bad and isn't like your fruity water kefir at all.

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  6. I wonder if this kefir water has alcohol content? I think I have yet try any kefir water and rather curious about its taste.

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    1. The is very little alcohol, if any present. You can buy the commercial ones to taste.

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