What is it you ask? Well they are probiotic drinks that instead of using a dairy base and making yoghurt, you use water and with the Kombucha Green or Black Tea and organic sugar(I use Rapadura or Panella which is simply unprocessed dehydrated cane juice) the Kefir are little clear Jelly like grains that may or may not multiply and the Kombucha Scobie is like a flat smooth Mushroom that grows on top of the fermenting liquid like a skin that gets thicker….it sounds kind of gross but it’s actually very cool and they multiply with every batch. The cultures eat the sugar to make a sour soda pop that you can the flavour with fruit or ginger or vanilla etc and sweetened with your Stevia, I wouldn’t use sugar once in bottle apart from a tiny amount for fizz or the bottles could explode…

I finally started making Water Kefir a few weeks ago after receiving my starter pack in the mail and love it, it’s so easy and makes such a great, cheap, healthy and tasty Ginger Beer or Cream Soda depending of course whether you add Grated Ginger or Vanilla to the bottle after fermentation. After I started making that for a little while I noticed on my Health Food Shops facebook sight that they were giving away Kombucha Scobie’s for nothing so of course I couldn’t resist, I had to go and get one. They take a little longer than the kefir to ferment (7Days instead of 2) and boy do the multiply. In 2 batches I now have 3 and by the end of this ferment I will have 5 if I was doing all 3 in separate containers I would have 6……it’s like indoor farming. I will in turn take my extras back from whence they came to give to the next lucky mushroom farmer. I have on lay-by a 5.6L glass jar with a tap so I can star a continuous ferment which will hopefully slow down the multiplication rate of them, it to makes great ginger beer. Once the fermentation of both Kefir and Kombucha are complete and the liquid is removed from the jars (Kefir are grains and need to be strained off) I grate up a couple of Tbs of Ginger, a couple of Tbs of Stevia (Natvia), 1-2 Tsp of Panella Sugar(I only do the sugar in the Kefir as the Kombucha uses the sediment it creates to make its fiz) and let it sit in the bottle for 2 more days as this gets eaten up by the Kefir it causes the carbonation and makes it a nice and fizzy.
I recommend everyone start doing this for the health and we’ll being, much better than sugary sodas and it tastes great and is reusable forever. Look it up people, you too can start your own little science laboratory. Just don’t ferment them next to each other or they will cross contaminate. When ready to use I strain the Ginger as I drink and add it to my Salad or toss it in to the end of a Stirfry or Curry so the heat doesn’t kill the beneficial bacteria from fermentation.