Some Things We've Gotten Right: Kombucha

(clicking on any picture will enlarge)

It's hard to believe it's been nearly 9 months since we were given our first Kombucha SCOBY (thanks, Maria!).

Last year we branched out a bit in investingating pre-biotics, pro-biotics, and lacto-fermented foods. The first three experiments involved our first attempts at culturing real milk into Caspian Sea Yogurt and Kefir. Of the two, we most enjoyed the Caspian Sea Yogurt, but only managed to sustain the culture for 3-4 months at a time before it got overactive and changed from its original taste and texture. The Kefir was enjoyed, too, but simply was more maintenance than the CSY, though we enjoyed both. Our uses of them centered around pairing them with fruit or granola (or both), or with frozen fruits and honey as smoothies. Boy, was it good!

As the very very hot months here progressed, we got caught up in other projects, and the "milk projects" took a backseat, since they require a good bit of regularity (though none of it was difficult). At the same time we'd researched those, we'd also played with the idea of buying a Kombucha starter "mushroom," or "SCOBY" to being making this highly-beneficial probiotic fermented tea. We noticed how many people made kombucha regularly, and that its appeal seems to be widespread and has a very loyal following. We also noted the potential health benefits. But frankly, I was just intimidated about it and afraid I'd poison my family by accident in all my experimentation.

Thankfully, there were online friends such as Maria, who coached me past my initial insecurities and got me off to a good start on this VERY EASY process of making Kombucha. She sent me the gift of one of her baby SCOBYs, yay! Shown above is the glass of kombucha I'm enjoying while typing this very post...and I do have to say it's NOT an acquired taste for us...it's simply delicious!

The more it's allowed to ferment, the stronger its flavor gets. If left to its devices, it will essentially turn into a sort of strong vinegar...so best to drink it and refresh it before it reaches that stage. At its best, it's an effervescent slightly tart slightly sweet tea with a hint of apple, and a delightful sweet cider smell.


This closeup shows the foam and tiny carbonation bubbles in a freshly-poured glass. Mmmm!


Kombucha has helped me forgo drinking Cokes (sodas, to you northerners). Jack never drank soft drinks much, but I did, especially on those blazing hot summer days. Now ice cold kombucha or water with lemon is our drink of choice. We save old bottles and use them sometimes to store kombucha in the fridge...if there's any left!

Before I ever got started, I went online and compared pictures of the SCOBYs I saw...they varied significantly. Some were pristine white and looked like pure paraffin. Some were uneven, or had "blisters" in different places. Some were creamy beige and others were unevenly colored anywhere from beige to darker brown spots. Some were pure spongy discs and others were layered, uneven pancake stacks. Some of the brews were barely tinted and others were very dark, nearly opaque.

And then there was the matter of the "strings" and odd floaty things. That's where the warning bells kicked in for me. So I read on...

Now that we've been doing this for several months, I'm not saying we're experts, but I am saying we've found what works for us. The hanging-down fibrous "jellyfish tentacles" that develop under the SCOBY ("mushroom") are normal and are what help create the changes from a simple sweet tea to a delicious fermented probiotic. In the jar shown below, I've made a fresh batch of sweet tea and poured it into some reserved kombucha (a couple cups or more from the first batch) and let the mushroom remain the same. I handle the cooking implements with very clean hands but have to make sure there are no traces of antibacterial soap left on them because that would quickly kill off the very GOOD bacteria we're trying to nurture in the kombucha. So after cleaning my hands and utensils, I rinse all in plain white vinegar, which serves to keep things clean but is friendly to the kombucha.

If I have a good, strong SCOBY, I'll often smooth off a lot of the fibers that hang down off the bottom layer, and if the bottom layer begins looking flaccid or seems to be coming apart easily, I'll dispose of it and rinse the next layer up with a little vinegar. In the picture below, all the layers were healthy and I needed a jump-start to a large batch of new tea, so I left the fibers. I no longer worry if they cloud the brew slightly, etc...I'll just get rid of the fibers the next time I brew a batch. They're actually healthy for the brew. Just filter them out when you pour some to drink (not harmful to drink, but I like my drink without any "floaters.")

A clean piece of kitchen linen is what we use to cover. A rubber band keeps it secured tightly but the layers of cloth allow it to breathe, which is necessary for the fermentation. We keep our jars in a shadowy area in a hutch we have, where they won't be handled or moved around in between batches.

My "mushroom" used to look thin and very uneven, and I was worried it was unhealthy, or maybe dangerous. I learned that it just takes time to get the batch built up to consistent brew, and the first couple of batches will make way for much better ones in only a few rotations. The way we now have SCOBYs for our three 3-gallon containers is by taking one of the "pancake" layers from another SCOBY and putting it into the jar along with a few cups of reserved kombucha, and then adding in the newly-brewed tea. Making sure to have a couple other SCOBYs on hand assures that you can keep things going if you feel one needs to be replaced. Here's how one of ours looks now. It is smooth on top but still has a "blister" here or there, which is normal for ours. We don't leave them exposed to air without a cover unless refilling with tea...especially with occasional fruit flies about.

(In the picture above, there is a reflection of the paper towel roll against the glass...there is not a white ghostly apparition at the left side of the brew ;-))

Here's a closeup...

We followed a very precise method at first, but then switched to what works best for us. Here's what we usually do:

1. One of our containers has a spigot. The other two do not. We use the tea in the one with the spigot first.

2. As the first container's being drunk down (usually quickly) the others are fermenting. By the time we drink the first container down to about three inches from the bottom, we simply refill it with some of the kombucha from the other containers. We do this for a couple of draining and fillings, never fully draining any container. This, for us, accomplishes the same thing as the Continual Brew method.

3. At some point, all three containers will begin getting low. We don't let them get lower than 3 or 4 inches from the bottom (several cups of brew remaining in each). If we're going out of town or don't want that big of a refill soon, we leave them As Is...covered, with several cups of brew in each. Undisturbed. They can stay this way for weeks, and will get stronger and stronger as vinegar. Not enjoyable to drink, but it preserves the SCOBYs.

4. If we DO want more of the Continual Brew Kombucha, we simply make several batches of sweet tea. The proportions we use are 1 cup plain sugar and several small plain Lipton tea bags per gallon of Spring water (any kind of purified water works as long as it has no salts or chemicals). They are cooled to room temp before refilling the containers. Sometimes we fill the containers all the way, sometimes not, but always use the same tea-to-sugar ratio per gallon. We never pour them in hot or cold...always at room temp.

5. Before pouring the new brew into the old, we assess how vinegary the remaining kombucha in the container is by tasting it. If it's really vinegary (like as strong as pickles), I'll remove some with a measuring cup till there's only an inch or two in the bottom. I like to skim from the top and not pour it out because that old kombucha has mature probiotics in it that only get better with age, and these are often concentrated at the bottom of the brew. (I do NOT wash my containers each time since we do continual brew. ONLY if my entire batch looks strange do I wash everything and start it over.) If the remaining brew is not very vinegary, I just leave it all and pour in the new batch.

6. I rinse the SCOBY in white vinegar and smooth off any dark brown strings or excessive hanging fibers. I look at the bottom layer to see how slick and healthy it seems. If it seems to be disintegrating, I pull off the parts that easily disengage and discard them, and then rinse the bottom with some vinegar on my clean hand. Nothing clinical...just smoothing the excess with my hand wetted with vinegar. It's at this point that if you have a "baby SCOBY" pancake forming one or more layers and you want to share with someone else, separate the part that easily comes apart and set aside in a sealed plastic bag with a few tablespoons of kombucha to keep it wet inside. If your SCOBY doesn't separate easily and the layers cling tightly together, I leave it be.

7. If there is ever any DRY discoloration or DRY mold on the SCOBY, or any discoloration besides brown, discard it and the entire batch of remaining kombucha, wash everything thoroughly in hot soapy water, and rinse all in white vinegar. You can restart it with a few cups of kombucha and a new baby SCOBY from another batch if that one's not got mold on it. Add a couple tablespoons of white vinegar to the liquid (this helps balance it) and a teaspoon of a pure grain alchohol. It might take a couple brew cycles to get back to the good mature flavor after doing this.

8. Fasten clean linen or cloth squares to top tightly with rubber band. Don't use cheesecloth, as the fibers are too widely spaced and dust and fruit flies can get in.

9. At some point in a few days or more, you will see "floaters" in the liquid, which are the floating fibers that are active in fermenting the kombucha. These are normal, and can be strained out when you pour yourself some to drink. In our container that has a spigot, most of these are concentrated at the bottom of the container below the spigot line, so most times we just drink it straight without filtering.

10. At any time, if the "floaties" actually move, look at them closely. If they move on their own, there is an imbalance and you have "vinegar eels"...nothing pandemic, but discard it all, clean everything, and start it all over.

11. We don't let our kombucha get below 72 degrees F. The warmer it is above that, the faster it "brews." If it turns too vinegary too fast, we simply drain some of it out and put in fresh tea mix (as stated above).

12. Basically, though this seems to be a very long set of instructions, it's not hard at all. You essentially make fresh batches of sweet tea and instead of putting it in the fridge, you put it with your SCOBY and it makes some delicious kombucha just by sitting around. The worst you ever have to do is very seldom discard a batch, clean it all, and start over, but if you have harvested the new layers of your SCOBY and started other containers, you always have that to fall back on.

13. We used to make a separate new batch every time we drank the old. Our modified "continual brew" method is an adaptation of the method described in some literature we ordered. By simply refreshing the brew while still leaving the concentrated bottom liquid in the container, the continual brew method, for us, seems to give a more consistent product. We often leave in as much as 6 or 7 inches of the old brew, depending on how vinegary it tastes. Some people love a very sharp-tasting brew. Jack likes his with a bit of a bite, and I like mine just at the carbonation stage but not very vinegary. It's just personal preference. The stability of the continual brew makes for fewer Start-Overs for us, and less cleaning overall. But there comes a time when it all needs a good scrubbing. Reserving some of the liquid and keeping the SCOBYs healthy ensure some reliability to restart it all again. We much prefer the continual brew method since it just works better for us.

Oh sure, we are novices at this and we've made mistakes. For instance...

1. Right after we got our first baby kombucha, Jack's mom went into hospice and for two months we were not here at home doing anything at all. I put the baby into the fridge with some reserved liquid. It took a while to come out of "dormancy" when I was finally back home to get things going again. But it did finally do its thing.

2. Neglect. I'm the culprit when that happens. Scenario...we've drunk all the jars down to the last few remaining inches of kombucha. And I plan on making a big brew to refresh them all. And then we get caught up in 100 other things and it doesn't happen for a while, and all the while the kombucha keeps getting more vinegary. Well, by the time I do make the big batch to refill them they're almost pickled...ha! But they still do their thing, despite my benign neglect.

3. A certain husband who will remain nameless got so desperate for a new batch of kombucha once that he couldn't wait for me to make it. So he did. Only he used enough tea bags to start his own Boston tea party, and used brown sugar instead of white. Thankfully, he only filled one of the jars with that. It was black and opaque. Ergo, it soon became time to start it allll over again, and Robbyn finally un-procrastinated and re-did the whole shebang.

4. Yes, SCOBYs can, indeed, be left floating in their kombucha-turned-vinegar for nearly two months and still remain healthy. (Don't ask me how I know...) But whew, you only need a little of that to kick-start the new batch! :)

My advice for anyone considering kombucha but still having some trepidation...go for it! Find someone nearby who already brews their own, if possible, but if you can't do that, buddy up with an online friend who's a pro at it and give it a whirl. I can MAKE it faster than I can type about what we've learned in trying.

To sum up...it's as easy as making sweet tea.

We feel it really ramps up our healthy internal bacteria, which gives the bad guys a double-whammy sucker punch. Let's hear it for the probiotics...woo!

Got Kombucha??

Hooked on Kombucha

This has been a huge leap for me, but it's something as easy as making a pitcher of sweet tea...

making Kombucha.

I'm posting this article for the faint at heart...folks like ME...with pictures. As a beginner, I've had a hard time telling if my Kombucha is "ok," and I'm unfamiliar with what it's supposed to look like in its different stages. I have to admit, as an uninformed amateur, if not for the encouragement of others, I'd have taken one look at this and declared it Funky and Disgusting.

But it's ANYTHING BUT that...so here's a peek at my learning curve.

Making Kombucha is much like many other things are, and have been, in this learning process. I want to can jellies, fruits, veggies, soups...when I learn (well, re-learn) those canning skills, one of the biggest obstacles I have to overcome is my discomfort and unfamiliarity, and the fear I'm going to somehow kill off my family with some deadly pathogen lurking in a homemade product.

Maybe this is evidence of how brainwashed, or at least dependent, I've become throughout the years in trusting commercially-marketed products rather than homemade ones. I think there's a lot of fear and distrust and misinformation that has to be undone by any homesteading-minded person to even get to the point of taking that first step into the unknown and trying something new.

We did that a while back with fermented products when we found a source for yogurt cultures needing no cooking whatsoever, especially the Caspian Sea Yogurt. We used it, got the hang of it, found our comfort zone, discovered how to use it in our meals and found the range of good and bad fermentation indicators. It helped that at no point the yogurt looked weird or funky...that's not one of the stages of the yogurt fermentation process.

I was more leary about Kombucha, and was holding off on trying it indefinately till Maria generously offered to give me one of her extra starter "mushrooms" (SCOBY) and gave me really simple instructions on how to get it off to a good start. Despite my trepidations, I said Yes!

(I just wanted to be sure I wouldn't kill the little starter culture...I have kind of a knack for doing things like that)

It was at about this point that things began to pick up with Jack's mom's illness, and things got crazy around here. And it was at just that point that our little baby SCOBY (Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeast) arrived in the mail from Maria (I still have to send the Thank you note...I'm the ultimate loser of a procrastinator!!)

Don't you love getting a box delivered by the mailman? Here's what was inside, including the beautiful card...lovely!



Up close, the baby SCOBY looked like a firm, gelatinous, jelly-fish-ish round disc, and the liquid it was in smelled divine...like a floral, apple-y smell..clean and sweet. A fingertip taste-test confirmed that it had a light cider taste...mmm!

I brewed the tea, added the sugar, diluted it with water and when it reached room temperature, I added the baby SCOBY into its new home.

Ok, so I didn't have a clean tea towel, so an old clean shirt of Jack's was sacrificed to the cause... the SCOBY is floating here at the bottom, but as it fermented it straightened out to meet the edges of the container and floated at the top.



Then life hit hard. Since the SCOBY is content in its liquid at room temp for days (or more) at a time, covered with a cloth secured with a rubber band, it was left to its own devices. When I was home, I changed the liquid out every 7 to 10 days. The liquid was murky and smelled vinegary, and...I was afraid to taste the liquid. There was a white floating scum on the top of the water that I was SURE was something bad...maybe my ferment was moldy?? I laugh now to think of it, but since it was neglected in between new brews of sweet tea solution, I took white vinegar (SCOBYs like white vinegar) and "cleaned it up" each time, reserving a little liquid to include in the new batch with the growing SCOBY. Oh, dear!

Finally, I realized the white surface scum was the good stuff...it was not fuzzy or dry and not turning colors. It was the part that thickens as the little SCOBY grows bigger. I confirmed this by looking at a lot of pictures on the internet.

My SCOBY, once at home in its brew of tea, has never looked perfectly pristine and white, but one of its babies has, initially. It separated into two sections like flaky biscuits do, and the underneath "flake" was white and seamless...the upper one was beige with an irregular surface. There were dark brown hanging fibers floating from underneath, like jellyfish tentacles, and some floating fibrous bits in the liquid itself, which seemed partially murky.

Again, if it were not for the convenience of an internet comparison, I'd have chucked the whole lot out of fear I was brewing some deadly potion.

But we found YouTube videos that showed all sorts, and saw that there is quite a range of brewing techniques and differences in the appearance of the different SCOBYs. Some are a pristine white, nice and thick, while others are highly layered and of varying thicknesses. Colors ranged from Dark Beige with variations within the layers, to pale and pearly. My SCOBY has variations in it and an irregular, but smooth, surface. At no point have I seen any mold, so I relaxed. I found a suggestion of adding a few tablespoons of vinegar for added mold protection, so I've been doing that routinely now.

After Jack's mom died, we had some time off and we decided to start the Continual Brew method. We are very much trial-and-erroring our way as we go...

We purchased another glass container, this time with a spigot at the bottom, and instead of emptying the contents after every 7-10 day brew cycle, we allowed it to do its intial ferment and then have a pitcher of the sweet tea solution made up to replenish any Kombucha we pour off daily. We don't worry about measuring how much gets replaced...we keep it filled to a fill line on the jar...easy!

To say we're enjoying the continual brew Kombucha is an understatement! Here are the three containers we have going right now...

This is a second baby that we're growing, and its container of Kombucha...it has variations of opacity and transparency, but in a couple weeks it will be a thick and solid re-useable "mushroom."

Here's the original SCOBY, being coaxed from dormancy (it had been stored in the fridge for a time)..it's getting thicker and whiter... it's rather like a leathery apple-vinegary scented pancake. (Sorry for the badly focused pic)



We're hooked! In fact, I was so hooked the first day it was ready to drink, I had (should I admit this publicly??) 6 iced tea glasses of it over ice ...all in one evening. The caffiene wired me so much, I was hyper and when Jack called me from work, I was feeling goooooooood...so good he got a little worried and told me to hold off on it another couple days to make sure most of the sugar had been fermented out. I've not had another 6 glass day yet, but I'll say this is my new favorite drink!

We don't keep soft drinks in the house, or order them often, so around here it's usually water, and occasionally milk or homemade limeade. But Kombucha over ice?? perfect!!! It's tart, lightly sweet, slightly carbonated (and if you store it in the fridge a few days bottled it ramps up the carbonation further). I used to filter it so there were no "floaters" but now I pour it straight over ice right from the Kombucha container spigot.



Man, it's good!

And so our science experiments continue! Among the three containers, we should be able to keep some Kombucha drinking going on!

I feel great after drinking it, and am sleeping especially well...like a baby, with dreams in amazingly vibrant colors...the first dream was of my buying a horse for the first time in my life...he was a beauty! (in the dream...)

Warning to other diabetics...you'll need to let it ferment to the more tart stage to insure a lower sugar content.

Kombucha...and Kombucha-making has turned out to be a fun (and nutritious) addiction. I'm glad I'm somewhat past the trepidation factor. This fermented drink is quite robust and loaded with glorious probiotics..the healthy bacteria that will chase the bad bacteria in our bodies right out of town :)

Ricotta, My Whey

I'm from Memphis...sorry, I couldn't resist! ;-)

Caspian Sea Yogurt, and What to do with the Whey

We're back to making Caspian Sea Yogurt. What's interesting is that our original live CSY culture was purchased (via internet)during the cooler spring months. It didn't get as hot during shipment as the culture we recently purchases did.

The yogurt produced from the milder-weather shipment was itself very mild, and had a unique honey-like consistency when poured. It endured a range of temps and fermentation times, and to make it was as easy as adding one part culture to 5 parts milk, any sort. We poured it into clean mason jars, covered each with a coffee filter and jar ring, and set them on top of the fridge to ferment anywhere from 8 to 12 hours. The consistency of the resulting yogurts ranged from a thin cream-type consistency to thicker, denser yet "slick" honey-type pourable yogurt. If we over-fermented some of it, it began separating into strata of solids and whey, and all we had to do was insert a knife or such down the side of the jar and pour off (and collect) the clearish whey liquid while the thicker solids remained in the jar. We stirred up the solids (which were not in fact solid, but just very thick yogurt) and store all in the fridge.

It was the perfect self-perpetuation yogurt, though it did not have the taste or consistency of what we'd come to think of as yogurt from the supermarket. This was more or less like cream, with a different viscosity, and Caspian Sea Yogurt is so mild, it's adaptable to eating straight or in almost anything else...smoothies, over granola or cooked oatmeal, you name it.

I grew to enjoy it, and Jack absolutely loved it...in fact, craved it.

Then I killed off my culture :(

I left the jars on top of the fridge too long, too many repeated times, and also began mainly culturing the new batches with the whey...which is ok but I won't ever do exclusively any more. The end result is that there was no middle ground final product...all the CSY became solid and whey, half one and half the other, and was very very tart...a sure sign it was over-fermented. After a while, every batch was just too sour to enjoy eating, though not dangerous to consume. More and more batches went out to be poured at the base of our potted fig tree. Eventually, I faced the music and discontinued making the CSY till we could get a fresh starter culture.

I started making the CSY again a week or two ago, and the starter culture was shipped during excessively hot weather. I suspect that would explain the different consistency of my former CSY and the ones I'm making now. But thankfully, till we can order another in the cooler months of winter, this CSY still has much to love about it...no cooking, no fuss, delicious...just with a bit of a different consistency than the first batch..not as "honey-like" to pour and quicker to form solids and whey. That's my first clue it could easily over-ferment, so I'm keeping diligent watch on the hours I leave them atop the fridge, before removing them to the fridge to halt the fermentation.



There is still some whey produced, and I pour it off after it's been chilled (easier then)and save it. Some of the solids make their way there, too, in with the poured-off watery whey. Whey is very tart and if you pour it off the CSY, the CSY is very mild and goes with more things.

So....what to do with the whey? If it is kept as is, it's still alive with probiotics...good bacteria that pump up the body's defense systems and increase immunity and digestion. However, I wanted to explore more uses.

It's said to be a good hair and body rinse, but I haven't tried that yet.

I saw mention that whey from cheesemaking can be used to make ricotta, and I wondered if the CSY whey would work as well, even though CSY is not a cooked hard cheese. The instructions were easy, so today I tried it out, just to see what would happen.

Making Ricotta from Caspian Sea Yogurt Whey

The instructions said to heat whey to 200 F degrees, stirring occasionally, then to line a colander with a clean pillowcase (or very tightly woven cheesecloth, not regular cheesecloth) and drain it through itand allow it to drain. Sounds easy!



I had heated 3 quarts of whey (shown in picture above), which had some CSY solids in it. At the end of the heating period (a few minutes)it foamed up and had to be stirred down. I settled a pillowcase-lined colander over a separate stockpot and poured the heated whey through it. Most of the liquid went straight through, and at first I thought there wouldn't be anything to show for the experiment. But with a rubber spatula, I gently scraped the fabric and there was a little something there...some ricotta. Yayy! Could it be that easy?



I let it drain a couple of minutes and scraped it together into a small pile. It probably made 3/4 - 1 cup, and was nicely moist. If I'd wanted it dry, I'd simply drain it longer. I lightly salted it, as the instructions suggested, and the flavor was delightfully mild and delicious! Refrigerated, it can be used over salads, to stuff pastas, to add to cheesecakes and sweet creamcheese desserts, or with chopped herbs for a spread for crackers or crusty dark homemade bread. I tasted it on whole grain crackers and nothing else, and it was great!



So ricotta can be as easy as Heat, Strain, and eat...who knew???

Are there any of you out there making Caspian Sea Yogurt? I wonder if kefir whey would also work...anyone tried it? One of the nicest things about fermented milk products is the ability to experiment and come up with really useful, easy, and delicious foods!

Teff: An Alternate Grain

This post'll have to be quick..I'm headed to work soon.

I'm hearing a lot of mention about experimentation growing grains from home. With food prices and availability being what they are (and not appearing to be headed the other direction any time soon), we're all having to consider moving our supplier from the supermarket to our own backyards. This is comfortable for us to a point, but what about growing grains and things we'd usually buy in bulk from a larger source?

I just wanted to post something about the grain, Teff. It's something I ran across when glutting myself with gorgeous reading on native/traditional foods of Africa and the Middle East. Teff is an ancient grain with the distinction of being very low gluten. But you had me at "ancient."

What's great about low gluten? There are a lot of folks out here with a sensitivity to higher gluten grains such as wheat. My sis has recently been diagnosed with such sensitivities...some are downright allergic to gluten.

Another interesting thing is that Teff is Ethiopia's primary traditional grain...the fermented flatbread that's really more like a pancakey crepe is called Injera. It's cooked on a griddle and used by hand in lieu of a untensil to carefully pick up bites of cooked food (and it's juices)and eat them. I had some Injera at an Ethiopian restaurant, and it was served where you could use it to select bites from a communal (at your own table) dish of stewed meat or vegetables...delicious!

In reading more about Teff, it seems it's been making its way closer to home. Teff grains are not its only virtue...the plant itself makes a good fodder plant. I know it's being grown in Kansas and Oklahoma, and the brief research I've seen has shown it seems to be able to weather both wet weather and conditions as well as droughts.

I love exploring "ancient" plants, and I'm looking for some teff grains to test in our kitchen, especially to ferment some batches of Injera, which looks very straightforward and easy. The fact it's adaptable to extending the growing season and to be a good forage for livestock is an added bonus. I can see us doing a test plot soon if it's really that adaptable.

If you've had any experience with this grain, we'd love to hear from you! If you experiment with it, we'd love to hear your adventures :)

Fermenticide

Thank you, Phelan at A Homesteading Neophyte, for sharing the hilarious tombstone generator link!

It's all too appropriate for this post...




Yes, I killed the Kefir.

Handcuff me and call the Culture Cops. Millions of healthy bacteria awaiting immigration to our lower GI tract, now denied their life purpose.

It gets worse. I killed the Caspian Sea Yogurt, too. Do not make me responsible for the survival of any small, helpless, living community...I left them to their own devices for too long.

The instructions that come with the cultures state that they can survive SOME over-fermentation, meaning that if you leave them too long in their cluster of covered Mason jars on top of the fridge, there is usually a portion that can be used to perpetuate their species despite the overly-soured contents and the resultant extra whey.

What happens is this...on a normal day, say with the Caspian Sea Yogurt...with a responsible adult in attendance, you take a small portion of culture, add milk, stir, cover with something permeable (I used a coffee filter), and leave it overnight on top of the fridge (my chosen location off the beaten path). The next day, you strain off the whey (easily, I just inserted a spoon down the side and poured the whey off), stir the remaining contents and cap it and stick it in the fridge.

Or with the Kefir, strain it, saving the liquid part for you to drink, and retain the kefir "grains" for making more, add milk, set the new jar on the fridge, and repeat the next day.

It's just THAT easy.

Then, whenever you want a smoothie that ROCKS, you put some fresh or frozen (my preference is the frozen) berries or fruit, add honey or your preference of sweetener if you need it, blend in a blender or with a stick blender, and drink down the delicious, probiotic fabulosity. The Kefir smoothie has more tartness, and the Caspian Sea Yogurt smoothie is mild.

That's how it worked. And worked and worked and worked. And was eaten and eaten and eaten.

Yes, I let it go too long up there on top of the fridge on different occasions, but always I could rescue it and reclaim it...it was forgiving. And still delicious!

Then came the weekend where I left the Caspian Sea Yogurt out too too long. It separated into clear whey and nearly solid and came out nearly like cottage cheese. And it was tart...whoooooo TART. It still tasted edible, but there was no portion of it that remained mild and creamy and uncurdled. I began having prodigious amounts of whey...something my fig tree appreciated, but evidence of the fact it was just pretty far gone.

And the Kefir? I had the Kefir on top of the hutch. The lone jar of Kefir. It turns out I liked the Kefir better than my husband did, and we ended up making a lot of the CSY for him, especially to take on his job shiftwork for lunches, dinners. The Kefir sat separate from the CSY cultures because you're not supposed to put them in too close proximity...the yeasts are differernt and if they "mix" even via the air I suppose, you can kill them.

(Sigh...) Yes, I left the Kefir too long alone. By the time I came to the realisation I'd neglected it, it was blowing bubbles...fermented bubbly alcoholic whey-ish bubbles. And it had turned..um...colors. This time, I had gone too far.

To the fig tree went the remains...solids and whey both...to be watered in. I am afraid of ferments that turn colors and an amateur's experimentation only can stretch the health violations so far and remain safe, in a manner of speaking.

I've learned from this. First, I had grown a lot of Kefir grains...the part that cultures the milk you add. Next time, I'll not put all my grains in one jar, but keep at least two jars of them going. With the Caspian Sea Yogurt, the sort you set aside each time to make more CSY is the sort it will reproduce. The literature states you can make it from the whey, which we also did, but once the culture has been over-fermented, the whey from the overfermented batches produces only over-fermented and very sour CSY. CSY is not supposed to be sour at all, especially after the whey is drained, so when the batches began retaining their sourness and changing in consistency from its distinctive pourable slick yogurt to a more curdled product throughout, you've lost your actual CSY. Or at least I never figure out how to regain it.

We REALLY used the daylights out of the CSY. I can't tell you how many gallons we made of that, using quart jars. It became a meal in itself, except that for me I never could enjoy it without it being in the form of a smoothie. When it was mild, it was helping my husband's joints and connective tissue aches and actually healing with noticeable effects. And..uh...he began looking younger than I look. Which was disconcerting, and is why I started drinking it, too!

We'll reorder the CSY culture. More on some other cultures I found out there, and what we'll be trying with them in another post. I'll wait on the Kefir, if we're attempting other cultures along with the CSY...don't want to bite off more than I can chew as far as simultaneous projects. But the Kefir is now in our repertoire and will be back. The fig tree will happily continue benefitting from my learning curve.

And this concludes my true confession.

Book me, Danno...

Another Whey to Fertilize

Because of our experimentation with fermentation, namely making kefir and Caspian Sea Yogurt frequently in the last couple of months, we've had a lot of whey collecting.

I've not yet ventured further into lacto-fermentation, and so have not yet begun making pickles and sauerkraut using whey as an agent. I've been meaning to toy around with whey in breads as well, but haven't gotten that far along my To Do list.

So what to do with it? I wasn't sure.

And when I'm not sure, I experiment a bit.

I'm not sure what the PH needs of my plants are(remember, the ones in all the buckets? ..Bucketville?), but I do remember hearing that whey might be good diluted with water and used on some kinds of plants. Which sorts of plants? It is there my science abruptly ends...I really don't know.

But I knew our two fig trees in pots were looking a little peaked, and I decided to begin emptying the whey from the yogurts/kefir on one of them, and to compare the two plants after some time passed.

I don't know if mine are deficient in nutrients, since we don't have a regular source of compost or rotted manure as soil amendments for Bucketville, so I figured as long as it was well watered-in, it probably wouldn't be doing anything but adding micronutrients and healthy bacteria to the soil much as the yogurt it had come from boosts our own human nutrition. If anything, I hoped it would feed and promote microbial growth and give a gentle boost to the rather plain potting soil.

Again, pardon the picture quality...it's my fault, not my camera's. For some reason, I'm putting it on a setting that blurs the foreground and highlights the background...argggh :) But do notice the colors of these photos... They were taken on the same day, at the same time and in the same lighting.

Here is the fig tree (in a pot) that regularly was fed the kefir and Caspian Sea Yogurt whey, and even leftover bits of the actual kefir and yogurt. I watered it in each time I applied it. It was often applied a quart at a time, a few days apart.

Notice the color...



Below is the second fig tree -- the one that received regular watering without any whey. Hey look! It's a cute little baby fig! Obviously it's a healthy tree...but notice the difference in the color compared to the first tree. It's particularly noticeable when looking at them side-by-side. The one fed the whey regularly is a much deeper, richer green, and the leaves are sturdier and more robust.


I don't know much more than this, and it's simply an experiment with these two plants...so don't go throwing kefir whey, etc., on your plants just because I did...I don't want to be responsible for killing off any of your little green friends! :) But I did want to show that for some reason, the whey seems to be agreeing with the fig tree, and as long as it does, I'll keep applying it...and watering it in each time. I figure it's natural and I know exactly where it comes from, unlike store-bought fertilizers. It's said to be healthy for humans to consume, so I believe it will likely be healthy for animals, when we get some someday, too.

If you have whey from cheese or yogurt-making, how do you use yours? I'd love to expand on my limited knowledge and get the lowdown from many of you kitchen veterans out there!