Water Kefir Tutorial

Water Kefir is considered as a probiotic drink. Water kefir is a great source of good gut bacteria, which will make you feel healthier. There are many people who claim a lot of health benefits of drinking water kefir, however I'm just going to base this on my personal account. Water kefir has helped me and my family to feel better in the gut, meaning that we don't feel constipated and have less stomachache.

Water kefir is produced by a culture of bacteria and yeast called "kefir grains" due to the way they lump together and form structure like grains. There are two main types of kefir grains: water kefir grains and milk kefir grains, which are used to create water kefir and milk kefir correspondingly. You can't use water kefir grains to make milk kefir, or milk kefir grains to make water kefir. This tutorial will focus just on how to make water kefir.

Here you can see a picture of how the water kefir Grains look. Healthy grains should look like this. They're transparent squishy lumps of bacteria and yeast.

It's very easy to make water kefir. To make a quart (about a liter) of water kefir you will need:

• Two 1 Quart jars
• 1/4 measuring cup
• Strainer (stainless steel is OK, but people recommend to use a plastic strainer)
• Plastic Funnel
• Cheese cloth and an elastic band to tight it to the jar

Start by cleaning very well all your utensils. Some people might recommend to sanitize them by putting them in the oven or in a boiling water bath. In my experience, just making sure it's really clean and dry is good enough. Sanitizing just ensures no extra wild yeast or bacteria will be incorporated in your water kefir. My recommendation would be to try a batch or two without sanitizing and watching/smelling the kefir grains after fermentation, if you notice no change between sanitizing and not sanitizing, I would say you might be alright (that's what I did).

Is recommended to use organic cane sugar to feed the kefir grains.

You will need 1/4 cups of cane sugar per 1 quart (1 liter) of filtered water. You can avoid spills by using the funnel. I also like to add some of the water first to make it easy to stir the sugar until is fully dissolved in water, then I add the rest of the water.

Here the sugar is not fully dissolved in water. I stir the mix of sugar and water just by moving the jar around to create a small whirlpool until everything is dissolved.

This is after the sugar is dissolved and all water is added.

After this, you can get your kefir grains, either by using them for the first time or by straining them from a previous batch. Don't forget to rinse them with filtered water before use. I found that this really help to remove odd flavors to the final water kefir.

Add 1/4 cups of kefir grains to your mix of water and sugar. Cover the top of the jar with the cheese cloth and secure it with an elastic band. In my case I use the screw tops of mason jars (I don't know what they're called).

Let it sit in a dark place for 1 to 2 days, but no more than 2. I personally let them rest for 48 hours. The bacteria and yeast will reproduce, creating more kefir grains in the process, as well as strains which are suspended in the liquid. Here's where your probiotic drink is born.

After the water kefir has rested. Drain the liquid from the kefir grains using a clean strainer (again you're welcome to sanitize it, I don't do it). If the kefir grains are slimy or they smell like bad (like stinky feet) then they're not good an you can throw everything again and start from scratch. You can try less fermenting time or sanitizing your equipment.

Give these kefir grains a rinse. They'll be good to be used for a new batch.

Transfer the liquid to bottles and store it in the fridge. You can store it for about a week.

That's the basics! easy right? You can have about a half glass per day to start noticing the benefits.

Here are some extra tips to have a great water kefir:

• Before transferring the water kefir liquid to the bottles, add some fruit juice to it and mix well. You can then do a second fermentation for a couple more days to have a fizzy water kefir.
• Don't want fizzy water kefir? Then make a smoothie and fill half of your glass with your water kefir and half of it with the smoothie mix. You won't notice that much the taste of water kefir but still get all the benefits of drinking it.
• If you want to stop your science project for a while or just want to store the extra kefir grains created every batch, you can make another jar with 1/2 cups of sugar (double the normal amount) and store the kefir grains there in the fridge for up to a month. You can keep doing this many times.
• You might be able to find water kefir grains online from someone in your country. I got mine that way.

That's pretty much it :). I usually have some in the morning mixed with orange juice.

Let me know if you want to try making water kefir or if you have questions about the steps, or even about things I didn't mention. I'll be glad to help.

Until next time!