Join Your Greener Future...

Find Your Greener Future on Facebook to get the latest updates!
Home | Contact Me | Manuela's Story | GarbArt Projects and Pictures | __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Friday, April 23, 2010

Water Kefir


The left jar is water kefir in the fermenting stage (you see the grains on the bottom and some of the dried fruit on top); the right bottle is ready-to-drink flavored water kefir

Last Sunday I went to a workshop at the go lightly store in Montclair.
The topic, presented by Green Mom Zoe, was water kefir, which is a vegan, super healthy, fermented drink you can make at home and which is loaded with tons of probiotics (the good bacteria that keeps our gut balanced and healthy).
Why do I post this here on my blog?
First of all because it is so healthy and second, because it’s easy to do and makes a DELICIOUS drink for the whole family. I actually prepare it every day with my 4 year old son and he loves doing AND drinking it.

This is Liam helping me with the preparation of the next round. We do it every single day!

It’s a green thing! You make your very own drink and save on store-brought bottles!
Here’s a quick guide how you do it, for detailed explanations and tutorials check out Zoe’s blog.
You’ll need (no metal is to be used for this drink):
  • a glass container that holds approx. 8 cups, cloth napkin and rubber band
  • plastic strainer or cheese cloth
  • plastic measuring spoon (for 1 tablespoon) and measuring cup
  • plastic or wooden spoon
  • large plastic bowl
  • spatula
  • plastic funnel
  • some glass bottles with lids
  • 6 tablespoons of kefir grains (which you can buy or get from a friend who’s doing it. I got mine from wonderful Trina Paulus, the butterfly lady, who also attended the workshop and who had some extra - they multiply!)
  • Organic sugar and organic sucanat (don’t be turned off by this – about 85-90% of the sugar gets removed due to the fermentation process)
  • Dried, unsulphered fruit such as raisins, apricots, figs,…
  • Fresh fruit or organic juice if you like to flavor your kefir
  • About 10 minutes every day
Here’s a quick guide how I do it (there's a ton of different ways and recipes):
  • Fill glass container with 6 cups of filtered water
  • Add 4 tblsp sugar and 2 tblsp sucanat and stir until dissolved
  • Add the kefir grains
  • Add about a handful of dried fruit of your choice
  • Cover container with cloth napkin and secure with rubber band
  • After 24 hours (or so J ) strain the whole content (keep liquid in bowl, grains and dried fruit in strainer)
  • Rinse container and grains (pick out the fruit and throw out) and start the process again with fresh filtered water, sugar and dried fruit right away
  • Fill kefir in glass bottles and put in fridge (up to 3 days)
  • The kefir is ready to drink, but you can flavor it if you want by adding juice to it and let it sit for another 24 hours (we love organic grape juice). You only need a little bit, so one bottle of juice will go a long way.
I’ve only been doing it for a few days and already the whole family is hooked on it!
Thank you Zoe and Jen for this wonderful opportunity! I hope a lot of people out there get interested and do it, too. Really, really easy and soooo good!

3 comments:

  1. Manuela, this is such a wonderful blog. Thank you for coming to my workshop and for spreading awareness on the benefits of this highlight delicious and nutritious probiotic drink. I love the picture of your son doing the kefir. So cute! :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes indeed, thanks for this blog and the good ideas.
    I got my water kefir grains yesterday and have already set up the second fermedntation with a little vanilla essence (my own home made 'cream of Soda').
    I took a little sip once I'd added the vanilla.... Scrummy :-)
    The next batch is already brewing, so I'm wondering what other lovely flavours I can experiment with. This is going to be fun - not to mention healthy!

    Yours

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks for sharing!
    I experiment basically with any kind of fruit I feel like, and it always comes out great.
    Right now I'm into a cranberry phase (meaning 100% pure cranberry juice). Makes the kefir a bit sour, but very delicious plus the added benefits that cranberries have to offer.

    ReplyDelete

ShareThis