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 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.