Beginners Guide to Making Milk Kefir

So, I'm also doing milk kefir, as well as water kefir and kombucha.  To make sure they don't contaminate each other, I keep them in different corners of the kitchen and carefully clean the items that touch them.  Milk kefir fermented for about 12 hours tastes like liquid yoghurt; if longer, it separates into curds and whey and  you can create a thicker yoghurt or cream cheese.

Milk kefir that has separated into grains and curds on top and whey at the bottom.

 Milk Kefir Recipe

1 cup of milk
1 tbsp of milk kefir grains



 

To make milk kefir, simply put the grains in a sealed jar with the milk and leave at room temperature for a half a day.  After a few hours, the milk will separate into curds and whey but the bottom will still look like milk.  Shake the jar until it's mixed again, then leave it to sit again.  After a couple of hours, the milk will have separated a second time and now it's ready.  

Grains left in the sieve that are covered in curds.

Pour the contents of the jar through a sieve to collect the kefir grains to reuse.  The curds will stick to the grains, so shake vigorously to get most of them off.

Put the grains in fresh milk to start a new batch.

At this point, the milk kefir is a liquid yoghurt .  If you filter it through a cheese cloth or coffee filter to drain the whey, you can easily make it into a spreadable cream cheese or a thicker yoghurt. 

After rinsing the curds off in milk, the milk kefir grains resemble cauliflower florets.

When I first got the milk kefir grains, I had some 1% organic milk in my fridge.  When I put the grains into this milk, half of the milk would turn into whey.  Now I'm using 3.25% and this turns into about 1/4 whey.

If you're eating the milk kefir yoghurt, it's a good idea to remove the whey.   The whey has a bitter bite to it.  You don't have to throw it away, it has a lot of uses in cooking.  To separate the whey, simply pour out the contents of the jar into a sieve; the curds cling to the grains in the sieve while the whey goes to through.  Pour this out and save.  Next shake the curds loose from the grains and you have your yoghurt at the bottom.  Otherwise, if you leave the curds and whey in the fridge, the whey will separate to the top and with the curds on the bottom.  Simply pour out the whey before eating the rest.

The grains will multiply quickly.  When I start with 1 tbsp of grains, I usually have another 1/2-1 tbsp by the end of one week.

To store extra grains, place them in the fridge with milk (1 cup of milk for 1 tbsp).  The milk will have to be changed weekly.  Dehydrating  the grains is also a possibility. 

Beginner's Guide To Making Water Kefir

Besides making kombucha tea, another drink full of probiotics is kefir.  I'm making both since they each have different types of bacteria.

Recipe For Making Water Kefir

- 2 cups of spring water
- 2 tbsp of organic cane sugar
- 2 tbsp of kefir grains

Instructions:

Dissolve the sugar in room temperature water by stirring with a spoon (no need to warm the water).   Add the kefir grains and cover.  Leave in a dark place.  Change after 1 - 2 days.  It's that simple.  If you prefer to have it bubblier, cover with a tight lid instead a coffee filter.


Water kefir grains require a balance of sugar and minerals.  Either use mineral water or sugar that has a lot of minerals in it, such as cane sugar, succanet, rapadura or molasses.  If there are too many minerals in the solution, the resultant kefir water can become slimy.


Things not to do:
- don't use distilled water unless you're planning to add other minerals to the mixture
- try to avoid tap water because of the fluoride and chlorine
- don't use refined sugar unless you have added other minerals as well
 

I rinse out the grains every few batches to get rid of any excess sugar build up.  I use a sieve to catch the grains and pour 2 cups of spring water over it and then use the water for that batch.

By the end of the first day, small bubbles between the grains.

And at the top of the jar.

By the second day, it's very foamy.

After a day, I notice small bubbles in between the grains.  By the second day, the bubbles will be huge and there will be a layer of them on the top (this is when I use the coffee filter).  If you put a lid on the jar, be careful when opening it, as the fizz can overflow.

My grains are clear because I use organic white cane sugar and the kefir water smells like yeast.  If you use molasses, it can give the grains a nice amber tinge but I find the smell of molasses even more off-putting than yeast. 

To store the grains, place in the fridge in fresh sugar solution (1 tbsp to 1 cup sugar solution) and change it every week (the grains become less active in the cold but still need sugar to survive).  When you change the solution, don't drink it because the balance of the kefir water will be off.  To use the grains again, take them out of the fridge and wait until the liquid comes to room temperature (there should be bubbles between the grains).  Then change the water.  Water kefir grains can go into shock if placed suddenly in different temperature.  When grains have been stored a long time, they sometimes develop a coat of sugar.  Gently mush the grains against a sieve to remove the excess sugar.

 Another way of storing the grains is drying them.  To re-hydrate them, simply place them in sugar water again.

I start with 2 tbsp of grains and this grows with every water change.  It soon gets to be too much, so I eat the extra grains, give them to family members who are too lazy to make the kefir drink themselves or sell them.

When I drink water kefir, I flavour it with lemon juice or fresh fruit juice.  To make water kefir fizzier, add more sugar and flavourants and bottle with a tight lid for another day.

Beginner's Guide To Vermicomposting

Worm Bin

A worm bin is great way to recycle and it creates a great natural fertilizer for you indoor or outdoor plants.

To start your own, you will need the following:
      A plastic bin with breathing holes on the lid or high up on the side
      A container of compost worms (red wigglers)     
      Shredded newspaper/paper/cardboard
      Food scraps
      Spray bottle (optional)
 


For my first worm bin, I decided to make it a tower-style one.  I bought 4 plastic shoe boxes and drilled some holes on the bottoms and lids of 3 of the boxes.  I used the box without holes as a bottom tray to collect any excess moisture.  I placed one of the boxes with holes in the bottom on top of water collection tray and closed it with the holed lid.  As the worms fill up this box with compost, I just keep adding another holed box to the top and the worms crawl through the holes into the next bin.  To keep the worms from escaping, I also put some lawn fabric on the bottom of the second tray (not taped) and on the top lid (taped on).

 

I placed a whole sheet of wet newspaper on the bottom of the second bin.  Next came the food scraps and the container of worms I had just purchased.  I covered the whole bin with a thick layer of wet shredded newspaper.  On top of this, I place a whole sheet of newspaper, so that it covers the entire surface of the bin.  Then I put the lid on top and my worm bin was finished. 

At the beginning, I didn't have enough worms or dirt, so I had to add water to the bin when I noticed that the newspaper was dry.  I disliked just pouring it in, so I bought a spray bottle at the dollar store and this worked really well to evenly distribute the water.  Now that I have enough compost to cover the bottom of the bin, the compost is wet enough that it keeps the wet newspaper moist. 

What to feed the worms:  

- try to limit things that are acidic, like lemons and tomatoes, as this will raise the pH balance of your bin and might kill your worms
- also avoid putting in meat, bones, and dairy products
-  some people add gravel to aid the worm's digestion but I find that coffee or tea grinds work as well
- egg shells have to be powdered using a grinder and it's a good idea to bake the egg shells first as this will kill the bacteria inside the shell.  Adding egg shells is a good idea if you want your worms to multiply quickly, as the worms need calcium to create their own worm eggs.


 I generally feed my bin every 5 or 6 days.  I put in a layer of food and a ton of newspaper and by the time I check it the following week, there is usually only a little bit of newspaper left. 

How to harvest the compost:

I have 3 single bins and 1 tower-style. The tower style is easier to harvest from because I can simply take the bottom tray off, collect the compost, and then put the empty tray back at the top of the stack.  But I always find a few stragglers even at the bottom tray.  To collect these, I simply use a pair of wooden disposable chopsticks to transport them back to the top tray.

For my single bins, I run the chopsticks through the compost.  This causes all the worms to dig deeper.  After doing this for about a minute, you can simply start scooping out the top of the compost.  You can't remove the very bottom, since this is where the worms are hiding, but you can remove quite a lot from the upper layers.

If you care about the worm eggs that might still be in the soil, you can simply keep the harvested soil in a seperate bin for about a month.  This will give the worm eggs time to hatch and grow to a decent size but not grow to egg-laying-adult size (this takes about 2 months).  Simply run your chopsticks through the dirt and scoop the soil out.  Any worms that are still in the bin should be at the bottom.  Just dump those back into your worm bin and now you can safely use the soil without any qualms.

Good luck with creating your own bin!

Beginner's Guide to Making Kombucha Tea

Kombucha Tea

Kombucha tea is a great fermented drink that provides you with lots of probiotics.  But it becomes pricey when you start purchasing it everyday from the store, so making it yourself is so much cheaper.  And it's a great substitute to fizzy pop; when I have kids over, they love to drink kombucha mixed with a little fruit juice.


Recipe for 1 quarts of Kombucha Tea (this recipe doubles easily if you want to make larger batches)

My SCOBY hotel for storing extra SCOBYs

4 cups of distilled water
2 teabags (black or green; black is the easiest)
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup Kombucha tea (from the previous brew)
1 Kombucha SCOBY


You'll also need the following equipment:

1 glass jar (big enough to hold a little more than a quart)
1 glass measuring cup
1 wooden spoon
1 glass pot (or a non-reactive metal one)
1 coffee filter (or cheese cloth)
1 elastic band



1.  Add 2 teabags to 4 cups of boiled water.  Remove tea bags.
2.  Mix in the sugar and stir to dissolve (I prefer using a wooden spoon).
3.  Once the tea is at room temperature (this can take several hours), add this mixture to the glass jar that is already holding the1/4 cup Kombucha tea and the Kombucha SCOBY and stir well.  (Never allow hot liquid to touch the SCOBY as this will kill it.)  If the SCOBY sinks, don't worry as it will rise back to the top in the next day or two.
4.  Cover the jar with a coffee filter or cheese cloth and secure with an elastic band so no bugs can crawl/fly inside.
5.  Place the jar in a dark area (cupboard or closet) and let it ferment.  I find that my kombucha tea is good to drink after 4-5 days.  But if you like a stronger taste (a little vinegary), just let it ferment longer.  When your Kombucha tea has finished fermenting, remove the liquid and store it in sealed jar.  At this point, you can flavour it with fruit juice or fresh fruit.  Never flavour the fermenting kombucha because it's not good for the scoby.


Note:  A new SCOBY will grow on top of your original SCOBY.  I usually don't separate the SCOBYs until they are more than 4 layers.  After that, you can either store your extra SCOBYs in a "hotel"  or give away the new layers to someone who would like to brew their own.  Don't store scobys in the fridge.  Simply replace the old kombucha liquid with a cup of sugared tea every week.  This will keep the scoby alive but the liquid will be too vinegary to drink. 


Also, if you don't have a SCOBY to start with, it's easy to make your own.  Simply get your hands on a small amount of unpasteurized, unflavoured kombucha.  Take a quart glass jar and fill it with two or three inches of kombucha.  Follow the same as when you are making a regular batch of Kombucha - put a coffee filter on top with an elastic and place it in a dark area BUT leave it alone for about 2 weeks until you see the SCOBY form on top.  Let this SCOBY grow until it is a solid mass about 3-4 mm thick.   Use the new scoby to brew your first batch of Kombucha tea.  If you like the taste of your first batch, then continue using this brew for your next batch.  If the taste is off, then just throw away the brew and start a new batch of tea.  The scoby and the new mother should be fine even if the taste is off.  The only time you cannot reuse the scobies is if you see mold growing on them (which looks like fuzzy bread mold). 



Storing Kombucha Tea

You can store your kombucha tea  in tightly sealed glass jars.  You can drink it right away or leave it in the dark cupboard again for an extra day or 2 to allow the  kombucha to regain some of the lost bubbles.

Since I ferment small batches of kombucha (only 8 cups), I don't refrigerate the finished product.  I leave it in a cupboard  (it does ferment more and become a titch vinegary) and all of it is drunk by the time my new batch is finished 5 days later. 

Store the Komucha tea in sealed jars or beer bottles with stoppers.

Flavoring Kombuch Tea

There are many ways to flavor your Kombucha tea though  I would caution you to wait until you have at least one backup SCOBY just in case something goes wrong.

1.  Teas
You can use different teas to impart a different flavor to your brew.    Black tea is the easiest to make Kombucha with, since it has the most caffeine and SCOBYs need caffeine to survive.  If you're using herbal tea, you'll want to make a batch with black tea every once in awhile to revive the SCOBY.

2.  Ginger/Fruit/Fruit Juice
You can add ginger/fruit after the first fermentation.  Just add some to the Kombucha tea before bottling it for storage. Leave it for a day or two and then enjoy!

3.  No hassel method
My favourite way to flavor Kombucha is to mix in fruit juice right before serving it.  That way I can use fresh fruit juice and the kids just love it.

Good luck and have fun experimenting with different flavor combinations!