I had never heard of Kefir grains, or water kefir until a year ago. An opportunity came up where I was able to get some for an excellent price (free!), so we thought we would look into it and find out what it was all about.
Water kefir is meant to be a healthy drink full of dairy-free probiotics which are good for you. Although you add sugar to the drink, you are not drinking it yourself, it is just there for the kefir to eat.
We decided that since is was bright and sunny and feeling like summer we would start off with a nice peach flavour. We went down to the local green grocers to purchase a peach or two. We discovered they had 2 types of peaches in stock: the usual round fuzzy variety, and another ‘flattened’ looking peach. So we purchased a couple of each kind.
We had already washed and made our kefir ‘happy’, and they were ready for some fermenting action.
We placed them in a glass jar and added some non-chlorinated water and sugar.
Then we cut up our peaches into cubes to add to the mixture. It was interesting to see that the two varieties of peach each had a different colour to them on the inside. The ‘regular’ kind was a peachy orange colour. The flattened peach was much more pale.
Our next scientific experiment was to give them a sniff to see how they varied in aroma.
Now it was time for the much-awaited taste-test trial of the peaches. Would they taste the same? No, they were different. The round peach was more tangy and the flattened peach was much more sweet.
We added the peaches to the jar only to discover yet another surprise – their densities were also different! The round peach sand to the bottom of the water, but the flattened peach floated on the top. Very interesting for all to see!
We set the jar aside in the kitchen and waited patiently for ‘things to happen’ Every couple of days we would have a sniff of the concoction and sneak a little taste on a spoon. Soon we could begin to smell the fermentation process in action.
Once the peach kefir water process had been completed we drained the peaches and kefir grains from the water. We each enjoyed a little glass of the sweet beverage. The children seemed to enjoy it, but I wasn’t partial to it because of the yeasty smell of the fermentation process.
We have yet to decide if we will try water kefir again. Have you tried it yourself? Please let us know how it went!
For other fun food ideas, we have done a citrus float or sink, a solar oven, and we tried new fruits while reading the book Handa’s Surprise.
