We've had the culture going for over a month, but it was a struggle initially because I was growing some sludge in it as well. Now that I've discovered the culprit of the ooky stuff, we've pretty much finished with it and my babies are reproducing and flourishing!
My other little one is a batch of naturally fermented vanilla extract. It definitely has a richer flavor and I'm enjoying using it in various recipes. I get especially delighted when I put a little in Andrew's morning kefir (now before anyone gets their panties too knotted...I add a tsp to a quart of kefir...really NOT intoxicating).
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| The mother and her offspring along with the vanilla interloper. |
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| Look at the grains dance and produce a luxurious foam. Not every water kefir culture can do that! Mine is special <3. |
4 comments:
ooh! that's so cool! and homemade vanilla -- awesome!
"-)
mmh
Interesting! I've always wanted to make my own vanilla extract. I saw instructions on someone's blog. Is this form of probiotics better than pills from the health food store? (Wondering if it might help the IBS the females in our family deal with continually...)
That special dancing kefir makes me laugh! And I love the homemade vanilla idea. Must think about that one. Any experiments in the sour dough department?
Robin - I'm sure they are better than pill form probiotics as Deereandy has noticed a drastic improvement with his acid reflux. I don't know much about IBS, but if probiotics are helpful for it - I'm sure kefir would be better - it is the real, living thing. There is also dairy kefir which is a different mother colony, but faster reproducing. It is more akin to buttermilk so you'd probably have to drink it with maple syrup ;)
SMC - since we are gluten free around here - no sourdough experiementation...but I do have a rice flour sour dough starter kit in my closet. I just need to research a little more before "waking" up the starter.
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