In today's video, I'm going to show you how to make delicious water kefir which is a fermented drink
Which has nature's probiotic in it and is really popular in our house for breakfast.
I'm Fiona. Welcome to Fiona's food for life
To make your water kefir you rinse out your... it's a very cyclical process
So you rinse out the container that you had the last time around, you pop in your strained
grains, as they're called, and you're ready to go.
So now we're going to put in some dried fruit here
I'm using apricots
If you have a dried fruit that looks the same color as the original fruit
Then it's got sulphites added to it.
So we want to try and use organic lemon, sulphite-free dried fruit, etc
When we're doing any of our fermenting So these are naturally dried apricots
So they're a lot darker than an actual apricot
sorry, than a fresh apricot. So they're naturally dried
So we're going to pop them in there
They will help to give some minerals and feed the grains Then we're going to add in some
organic lemons, and then we're going to add in some sugar water
So I have a bit of... in this I tend to use just regular sugar. I find the grains perform a lot better
Add in a little bit of boiling water, so that we're going to dissolve the sugar!
Then, I'm going to add some spring water to that
See when you're fermenting you want to use spring or well water
Then we can pour it in... now it's not too hot
I can pour it in on top of the grains and generally, I want to make it up to about
750 ml of water
Now that's ready to go to a warm dark place for - in my house it's 48 hours
You'll know after a couple of hours if it's fermenting if you tap the sides
of the container and these little air bubbles will come up
then you know it's fermenting
it can take a couple of goes when you first get those grains to your home
to see how... to see if they will work
So when I first started it took two attempts, so there weren't any bubbles at all coming up
So I just strained it, started all over again
Same thing happened and the third time as I strained it started all over again, the bubbles started coming up
I knew it was fermenting and then I got a beautiful fizzy water kefir in the end of it.
So
the muslin that I'd use
so you can get the muslin generally in a fabric shop or a craft shop
The muslin lets the air in and the bacteria that are naturally in the environment in
but keeps the things like fruit flies out
If you don't have it, you could always use like a cloth napkin
but these are fantastic So this one it'll often get quite wet as the
as it splashes up
So I will just put that into the wash into a regular
wash and then afterwards I will boil it for about 10 minutes to get rid of any residue of the
the detergent on it So here I have another one ready to go
I only change it once every three or four times.
So you pop your muslin over you need an elastic band
that's to keep the fruit flies out and then you pop that into your warm dark place for 36 to 48 hours
And then you're ready to go
So the water kefir has been sitting here in a warm dark place covered in the muslin
For... from - in my house, it's 48 hours. So I remove the cover if I'm going to use it again
Just be careful when you place it down on the countertop
just in case it comes in contact with fruit flies or anything
so just keep it the right side up
these are the dried fruit and the lemon which I put in earlier on and
That's really to give minerals to the grains rather than to actually flavor your water kefir
Then you're going to strain it through a nonmetal strainer
into your bottle
Then you have all of your water kefir grains here which you can use again
So you just need to wash out this jug and then it's ready to use again
Now we can do our second ferment with the water kefir
So we have taken the kefir away from the grains and now can have its second ferment where it will get
characteristics like becoming a little bit sparkling, which makes it really nice or you will add flavors
The most popular flavor in my house is adding a bit of elderflower cordial
So you can check out my youtube video on how to make that
but I'm adding about 1 and 1/2 tablespoons of elderflower cordial
to the bottle for the second ferment and then you simply close the bottle
give it a little mix and leave that in a warm dark place for another 24 hours
The flavor is going to go through it and it's going to become nice and light and sparkling
Thanks for watching today's video on how to make water kefir
I'd love to know how you get on
Please drop me a comment below and don't forget to subscribe
to get updates on my new videos as they come out
Have you checked out my milk kefir or my sourdough bread? Other fermented foods
Thanks for watching. See you soon