Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

• What is water kefir? is it kefir at all? Tibicos. Took me long time to figure out.
• Needs sugar water, mineral source, and nitrogen source. Mineral + nitrogen source can be fruit juices or veggies, such as carrots or potatoes.
• Recipe: sugar solution + nitrogen source (juice, or carrot pieces) + water + starter grains, can leave between 24-48 hours to a few weeks depending on the weather and the level of sourness desired, you decide when it’s done! Grains will multiply and increase in volume
• Can also do flavoring round after first, take out the grains, put fruit juice or flavoring and let ferment for a few days.
• Secondary fermentation is optional, add priming sugar and put it in air-tight containers, leaving a good airspace.
• Need to be careful, one of my vigorous ferments made it to the ceiling without agitation!
• Drunk sour like soda (carbonated or not), or mixed with fruit juices and other drinks.
• Ferment can be slow to get started, think does it have good carbon source (sugar) and source for nitrogen and minerals? Needs mixed nutrition like humans!
• Sometimes ‘pellicle’ (biofilm) can form on top of the surface of water, is normal, not to worry about, scoby creating protective film to protect itself, can be discarded or kept around. Don’t worry about using metal objects during processing, no big deal.

Water kefir. What is water kefir?

It’s more of a rhetorical question, because what is kefir to begin with? Water kefir grains are a bunch of small, gel-like grains that are semi-translucent or completely transparent in their appearance. They share some visual similarity with the jelly-like substance starter for milk kefir, which is why they are sometimes referred to as water kefir. The other name for them is tibicos. Water kefir needs sugar, water, a mineral source, and a nitrogen source. A mineral plus nitrogen source can be fruit juices or veggies, such as carrots or potatoes. Here’s a simple recipe for water kefir.

Add, create a simple sugar solution, and add a nitrogen source. It can be any fruit juice or carrot pieces. Add a little more water and add starter grains. Let the mixture set in medium-warm temperature between two days and a couple of weeks, depending on the weather and the level of sourness you want. The recipe is complete when you think the drink is sour enough. You can strain out the grains and drink the sour water. The grains will have multiplied and increased in volume and can be used in multiple future batches. It can also be flavored by taking the grains out, putting fruit juice and extra sugar in the new output. And a secondary fermentation is optional. In secondary fermentation, you add priming sugar and put it in an airtight container, leaving a couple of inches, uh, an inch or half an inch of airspace between the water and the top of the bottle. Um, left outside, the microbes in the liquid will consume the sugar and produce carbon dioxide. When this mixture is refrigerated, the carbon dioxide dissolves in the water, and when opened, creates the fizzy, free fizzy effervescence. This is basically homemade soda. It’s important to be careful with this fizziness, though. One of my vigorous water kefir ferments has made it to the ceiling without agitation because it was over-carbonated, and I was not aware of it.

It can be drunk sour like soda. It can be carbonated or not, and it can be used with fruit juices and other drinks to add fizz or flavor to them. The ferment or culture can be slow to get started. Often when it’s slow, I’ve noticed it’s either lacking the carbon source, which is the sugar, or the nitrogen source, which is carrots or potato slices. Just like we need a mixed diet of carbohydrates and proteins, so does water kefir. Sometimes a pellicle or biofilm can form on top of the surface of water kefir. It’s totally normal and nothing to worry about. It’s the SCOBY, symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast, creating a protective film to protect itself from pathogens in the air. It can be safely discarded or kept. Um. Additionally, contrary to what many other online sources, especially YouTube videos, will tell you, it’s completely okay to use steel metal objects during fermentation or fermentation processing because steel is quite resistant to rusting and interacting with sour items. And these are cold temperatures, and if you’re fermenting in rusty, nasty dishes, then you have other things to worry about. I would not do any ferments in copper or nickel dishes because they tend to be antibiotic. They tend to have antibiotic properties. But I don’t think that needs to be said because I imagine not many people are doing it anyway.