Clodfobble • Aug 30, 2010 9:11 am
Well, there's no turning back now. I have officially crossed well beyond the dirty-hippie line, and started making my own kefir at home.
Realistically, it was a financial decision more than anything: in an ideal world, the amount of probiotics my children could benefit from would run $200 a month just by themselves, and we have other meds we have to buy. But if I can grow it myself for next to nothing, at a potency 2-3 times higher than even $200 could buy me...
Anyway, the thing that sealed the deal for us is I learned of the existence of water kefir, which is a different combination of species that thrive happily on plain sugar water, rather than dairy. (I know you can also grow traditional kefir in coconut water, but we've got coconut allergies to contend with, nevermind the inherent problems of dairy.) My first batch took 5 days to properly ferment, which I was told to expect since the grains had to go dormant after not being fed for a couple days in the mail. But my second batch is doing quite well, and I'm looking to strain it at the 2-day mark. And the grains themselves are already starting to grow too, which is very exciting.
I haven't given any to the kids yet, I want to go through several more batches and make sure I'm doing everything right before I subject them to anything. But I've been drinking my first batch, and it's pretty good. Well, it's still very sugary since it only got half-assed fermentation, so maybe that's helping my impression of it. But in the meantime, my second batch is being flavored with dried cherries (recommended to pick up the fermentation pace if they're being slow to wake up,) so I'm looking forward to the results of that.
Mr. Clod is openly disgusted by this whole thing. :)
Realistically, it was a financial decision more than anything: in an ideal world, the amount of probiotics my children could benefit from would run $200 a month just by themselves, and we have other meds we have to buy. But if I can grow it myself for next to nothing, at a potency 2-3 times higher than even $200 could buy me...
Anyway, the thing that sealed the deal for us is I learned of the existence of water kefir, which is a different combination of species that thrive happily on plain sugar water, rather than dairy. (I know you can also grow traditional kefir in coconut water, but we've got coconut allergies to contend with, nevermind the inherent problems of dairy.) My first batch took 5 days to properly ferment, which I was told to expect since the grains had to go dormant after not being fed for a couple days in the mail. But my second batch is doing quite well, and I'm looking to strain it at the 2-day mark. And the grains themselves are already starting to grow too, which is very exciting.
I haven't given any to the kids yet, I want to go through several more batches and make sure I'm doing everything right before I subject them to anything. But I've been drinking my first batch, and it's pretty good. Well, it's still very sugary since it only got half-assed fermentation, so maybe that's helping my impression of it. But in the meantime, my second batch is being flavored with dried cherries (recommended to pick up the fermentation pace if they're being slow to wake up,) so I'm looking forward to the results of that.
Mr. Clod is openly disgusted by this whole thing. :)