Making Water Kefir

I've been reading about all the health benefits of water kefir. We take probiotics daily, eat homemade yogurt, and sourdough bread. I've brewed kombucha, but no one besides me really cared for the taste. I ordered live grains, and within two brews, my grains tripled!  Making water kefir pop is easy peasy, lemon squeezy.

First attempt at making water kefir soda pop. This is what the first ferment looked like.

Second ferment, in the snazzy stopper bottle purchased just for this experiment. Cherry-lemonade, turned out pretty.

Tart, bubbly, and ready to drink. Water kefir soda success:)  Little B didn't know what to think. He doesn't dig on carbonation.


I make mine by the quart, like this-

Dissolve 1/4 cup of Sucanat, and 1 teaspoon of  blackstrap molasses in 1/2 cup of warm water in a quart size mason jar.  Fill jar up the rest of the way with cool water, add 1/4 cup of grains, cover with a coffee filter, secure filter (I used a hair tie), sit in a warm, dark place for 24-48 hours.  You can really tell when it's ready if you use the Sucanat, because the color changes.  When it's changed to lighter, golden color, it's done.  Using a plastic strainer, I strained out the grains, and added the water kefir directly to my clean bottle.  The grains are ready to be put back in to another jar, with sugar water, and the process starts all over.  I added a 1/2 cup tart cherry juice, 1/2 cup cherry juice, and the juice of one lemon to my bottle, applied the stopper, and let it second ferment for 24 hours.  Easy!  I was pretty amazed at how fizzy it turned out.  The second time I made it, I added a pinch of sea salt. The grains love the minerals. Between the molasses, and sea salt, my grains went gangbuster.  I had enough grains after two brewing processes to give away a 1/2 cup of grains. Not too shabby.  I have looked at a lot of recipes lately, and they all seem to vary on the amounts of grains and sugar to use by the quart.  I think I was using too much of each for the quart size jar, but.....I've had good results, so I'll keep doing it this way.