Sparkling cherry lemon kefir juice

I just made another batch of amazing cherry kefir juice. I love experimenting with this stuff. This is based on this which is based on this. This time, I fermented the black cherry juice for only 24 hours at room temperature, and added only a teaspoon of molasses to the half gallon jar. I then removed the water kefir grains and put it in the refrigerator overnight. I squeezed an entire lemon into it after pouring it into the glass.

This time it came even closer to perfection than the last time. This time, it tasted so much more like a natural soda since I couldn’t even taste any alcohol. It must be there, but it is probably less than 0.5% alcohol. It was very fizzy, with a significant amount of sweetness due to the natural fruit sugars and a whisper of molasses. If you remember last time, it came out more wine-like than soda-like(especially jar 1 that was left to ferment at room temperature longer, while jar 2 was less wine-like).

It tasted sort of like a blend of cherry cola and 7 Up, except this is probiotic and naturally carbonated. Since I didn’t ferment it for too long, it’s not that acidic. I tend to enjoy the sourness of fermented beverages, so it tasted like the sourness was “missing”. This is why I added some lemon, which made it taste divine.

I highly recommend it. It’s a terrific recovery beverage for endurance athletes.

Cherry kefir oatmeal

Here’s another thing you can do with cherry kefir juice: Add it to oatmeal. It really adds a lot of flavor to the oatmeal, plus some healthful bacteria.

Add the kefir juice after the oatmeal has cooled down for about a minute, since you don’t want to cook the kefir juice as it will destroy the probiotic health benefits.

Like I said, water kefir is very versatile.

What probiotic foods are you eating these days?

Cherry kefir juice update

Some good news. My post about the cherry kefir juice from a few days ago was only about the fermented cherry juice in jar 1, not jar 2. If you remember, there were 2 jars. Jar 1 spent 2.5 days fermenting at room temperature before I put it in the refrigerator, and it tasted like cherry wine to me, almost bordering on cherry brandy. Almost all the sweetness was gone since all the sugar had been converted to alcohol and acid. I didn’t enjoy the taste since I do not like strong alcoholic beverages and was aiming to just create an effervescent, soda-like probiotic drink with only a hint of alcohol(0.5% to 1%). It went beyond this.

After nearly finishing the cherry kefir juice/wine from jar 1(diluting it with water or regular cherry juice which made for some delicious, complex flavors), I started to drink the cherry juice from jar 2. I left this fermenting at room temperature for only 1.5 days, and then put it in the refrigerator. I put it in the refrigerator earlier to see how different it would taste from jar 1, and because I was going to drink it after jar 1 and didn’t want to leave it fermenting at room temperature for too long.

What a difference 1 day makes! The cherry kefir juice from jar 2 is a lot less alcoholic and sort of tastes like a strong cherry soda or cherry cola. It is a little sweet, but also quite sour. There is a hint of alcohol, likely less than 1%. This is what I was aiming for. It is very carbonated and bubbly, and it feels so tingly on my tongue, and is loaded with healthful bacteria.

So from now on I won’t be leaving juice to ferment for more than 2 days at room temperature during the summer, unless I am trying to make wine instead of a bubbly probiotic beverage.

Crazy cherry kefir juice

After leaving the black cherry juice to ferment for 2 days with 2 tablespoons of water kefir grains in them along with a bit of molasses, I decided to drink it.

It was much too alcoholic. It tasted far more like wine than juice, and I felt a little “weird”(a bit dizzy and a little bit light-headed) after I drank some of it. I should have remembered to not leave it to ferment too long during the summer, since the heat speeds up the fermentation process, turning it into alcohol much faster. I should have left it for a day and a half. There was hardly any sweetness since most of the sugar had been converted to alcohol or acid.

I really do not know how much alcohol is in it, but I’m guessing anywhere from 2% to 5%, though it tastes like even more than 5% – this could be due to the fact that I am so not used to drinking alcohol. I’ll let a friend or relative who is a drinker have some to tell me what they think the alcohol content is. Since I am not fond of alcohol, I dilute this before drinking. I have so much of this stuff I will need help drinking it – come on over if you want to have a vegan cherry wine party. If you can sing or dance, even better!

Unfortunately, I lack the tools to figure out the % alcohol of this beverage; past a certain % I think I would be in violation of several local laws. So I decided to test myself to see if that “weirdness” I was feeling after drinking my first glass meant my blood alcohol level went up and my cognitive abilities were compromised. So I grabbed some balls and started to juggle, and did so flawlessly. I grabbed an extra ball to juggle 4, and did this for about half a minute before dropping, which is normal for me.

I then ran out the door to joggle for a few miles. I didn’t drop. I decided to take it up a notch and do some basic tricks. I dropped them once, but again, this is pretty normal for me. I even did some sprinting while juggling, and no drops.

I then decided to do the most difficult joggling trick I know, which involves juggling in a 3 ball cascade pattern while running, throwing one of the balls high in the air, followed by quickly spinning by body around(while running forward), then catching the ball as I complete my spin, and finally resuming 3 ball cascade juggling while running. The neighborhood kids love this one, especially when I trip on something and fall to the ground(this happens every now and then).

I tried it the first time and I was successful, though not flawless since I almost dropped. I tried it the second time, and was successful again. I totally screwed up on the 3rd try, but then was successful when I tried it the 4th time. Normally I have a 25% success rate with this trick, so this was pretty impressive considering I still felt a little weird from the kefir drink. Since this trick involves spinning around, it requires a lot of space and no people in my path. I get dizzier the more I do it, so I have my limits when it comes to this trick.

So I’m guessing the alcohol content of the cherry kefir couldn’t have been higher than maybe 4% tops, since any more probably would have compromised my juggling ability. I only joggled in intervals for a few miles, didn’t go too far.