The Essential Book of Fermentation (46 page)

Water kefir can be made with sweetened green tea or fruit juice, but beware commercial, processed fruit flavorings, because these usually contain preservatives that can kill the grains. The sweetening is crucial, because that’s what the water kefir grains use as a source of nutrients. The other flavors are just to keep you interested. For a very refreshing draft of water kefir, use coconut water (check to make sure it has no preservatives), sweetening it slightly with Sucanat. This is my favorite kind of water kefir.

Ginger Beer Water Kefir

This is a favorite here and in England. It’s said that the water kefir grains and the recipe came home with British soldiers after the Crimean War in the mid–nineteenth century. They called the grains the ginger beer plant. Here’s how to make 2 quarts. You can use a glass or ceramic half-gallon jar, as long as it has a tight-sealing lid. A food-grade plastic half-gallon water jug works, too, as long as you have the cap that screws on tightly.

Makes 2 quarts

2 ounces fresh ginger root (one thumb)

½ cup Sucanat (whole cane sugar)

6 cups spring water (not tap water, unless you have your own unchlorinated well)

1 cup water kefir grains

½ organic lemon

1 unsulfured dried fig or 2 tablespoons unsulfured raisins

1.
Grate the ginger into a bowl. Sprinkle it with 2 tablespoons of the sugar. With the back of a spoon or pestle, press out as much juice as possible from the ginger, allowing the sugar to dissolve in the juice. Put the contents of the bowl in a double layer of cheesecloth set into another bowl.

2.
Draw up the ends of the cheesecloth to make a little bag, tie it off tightly, then twist and squeeze the bag hard, catching the sweetened ginger juice in the bowl.

3.
Put the ginger juice and the tied-off cheesecloth bag in the jar with the water and the rest of the sugar and shake or stir until the sugar is dissolved. Add the kefir grains, the lemon, and the dried fruit.

4.
Seal the jar tightly and let stand at room temperature for 48 hours, shaking up the contents a few times during that period.

5.
Strain off the ginger beer into airtight, sealable, strong plastic or glass bottles. Place in the fridge for 2 days before drinking, or, optionally, increase the fizz by allowing the strained ginger beer to sit sealed at room temperature for an additional day before placing it in the fridge. Drink cold.

Monica Ford’s Apple Ginger Soda

Monica Ford is a real food devotee—in fact, she calls her business Real Food Devotee—and she delivers nutrient-dense, ready-to-eat foods to homes around Los Angeles. She’s enthusiastic about producing these foods and sharing recipes for fermented foods, and she tries to make it fun. For more info about her, visit www.realfooddevotee.com.

She starts the process of making fizzing soda by creating what she calls a ginger bug. This is a starter made with fermenting ginger, but she notes you can also use whey, water kefir grains, or kombucha as a starter.

Makes 1 quart

Ginger Bug

3 cups filtered water

1 tablespoon Sucanat (whole cane sugar)

1 tablespoon diced unpeeled ginger

Apple Ginger Soda

¼ cup ginger bug

1½ teaspoons freshly juiced ginger (or to taste)

3½ cups freshly juiced apple

1.
Make the ginger bug: Combine all the ginger bug ingredients in a quart jar.

2.
Put on the lid, give the jar a shake, and allow it to sit for a week at room temperature. Loosen the lid a few times to make sure too much pressure isn’t building up in the jar.

3.
Make the soda: Place all the ingredients in a sturdy quart bottle with a tight-fitting screw cap screwed down tight.

4.
Allow it to sit in a warm (72 to 80ºF) place in your home. If your home is cold at night, use a seedling heat mat or heating pad on the lowest setting and set the bottle on it.

5.
After one or two days of fermentation, look for bubbles rising in the bottle. Carefully loosen the screw cap just a bit and listen for the hiss of gas escaping.

6.
If you hear the gas, pour the beverage into a glass for a fizzy, probiotic-rich drink. If you’d like it chilled, screw the cap down tight and chill in the fridge until cold, then drink.

Grape Juice Kefir

Take some of your water kefir grains and use them for this delightful beverage. But don’t use them all, because the juice will stain them. It tastes best if you are using fresh grapes, especially fresh wine grapes—just make sure they are organically grown, because otherwise they could be sprayed with pesticides or fungicides that can kill off the microbes in your kefir grains.

Serves 4

2 bunches fresh organic red or white grapes (3 to 4 pounds)

Spring water to equal the amount of grape juice you get

½ cup Sucanat (whole cane sugar)

¼ cup water kefir grains

½ organic lemon

1 stick cinnamon

1.
Stem the grapes and put the grapes in the blender. Whiz into a coarse slurry on low speed. You want to avoid breaking the bitter, tannic seeds, so blend only until the grapes have turned to mush. Line a bowl with a double layer of cheesecloth and pour the grape slurry into the center of the cloth. Pull up the edges and tie them off to create a bag. Holding the bag above the bowl, twist and squeeze the bag to catch most of the grape juice. Measure the juice amount in a measuring cup.

2.
Place the juice in your fermenting jar, which must have a water-tight sealed cap or cover. Add the same amount of spring water as you have juice.

3.
Add the Sucanat and stir or shake with the cover on to dissolve completely.

4
Add the kefir grains, the lemon half, and the cinnamon stick.

5.
Seal the jar just to finger tight and ferment at room temperature for 1 or 2 days, until fizzy. Then place in the fridge until cold and use within a day. Strain when serving.

OPTIONS:
Be creative. Ferment your water kefir beverages with bee pollen, flax seed, or pomegranate juice. Experiment, but remember, water kefir grains need a clean, organic sugar to do their work. Add ½ cup of Sucanat for every half gallon of liquid.

A Well-Hopped Ale

To keep the entire process of beer making under your control means you’d have to grow out a stand of your own barley; harvest and thresh it; sprout the barley, which changes the starch to sugar, at which point it becomes malt; dry the malt; and grind the dried malt. Then you’d be ready to start making beer. Well, you’d be ready if you also simultaneously grew several kinds of hops, gathered Irish moss seaweed at the coast, grew corn to make corn sugar, and tried to find a good strain of beer and ale yeast, which would require the services of a microbiologist. As you can see, while home-brewed beer is certainly possible, it’s a lot easier and more fun if you buy your ingredients from a winemaking and beer brewing shop—either a bricks-and-mortar store near you or, even easier, online. A centrally located online source of all the ingredients and equipment used in the accompanying recipe is Midwest Supplies (www.midwestsupplies.com), whose helpful staffers will also answer any questions you may have.

This recipe comes from Peter Burrell, owner and brewmaster at Dempsey’s Restaurant and Brewery, perched above the Petaluma River in Petaluma, California. For about twenty years, he’s been slaking Sonoma County thirsts with his delicious brews while his wife and co-owner, Bernadette Burrell, has been making sure there’s plenty of good food to go with the perfect pints. Peter says, “This recipe is for an India Pale Ale (IPA), which, as you know, is quite popular these days.” Indeed it is. In a recent competition, another Sonoma County IPA, called Pliny the Elder, won the award for best craft beer in America. In describing his recipe, Peter continues, “It’s a medium-bodied ale with a hoppy finish that should prove out to be about 6.5 percent alcohol.” If you visit Petaluma, be sure to stop by Dempsey’s and do a tasting of his beers and ales. They are superb.