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.

The art of cherry kefir juice

I’m becoming obsessed with making water kefir juice drinks these days. This is made from black cherry juice, and it should be ready to drink in a few days. It will probably taste like cherry coke, but with a hint of alcohol, more tart, and an overall stronger flavor.

I used the blueberry kefir recipe, but substituted black cherry juice for blueberry juice and added 2 tablespoons of water kefir grains to each jar instead of 1 like I did in the blueberry juice recipe(I have a kefir grain surplus). I also used 2 jars instead of 1.This may cause it to ferment even faster and we’ll likely end up with an even stronger probiotic drink. I will skip the secondary fermentation step this time to see what happens.

This cherry kefir juice may be one of the most ideal things a distance runner can drink after a long run. I’ve already posted how cherry juice can help speed recovery in “Exercise Recovery is Just a Bowl of Cherries“, but the fact that this is a probiotic cherry drink may make it even better. So many of us can’t eat much of anything after very long runs, and some of us may even feel nauseous. Yet it is important that we eat or drink something within 30 minutes after endurance training, otherwise we can’t refuel and recover properly.

This kefir cherry juice may help resolve this issue since as a probiotic it may stimulate digestion and allow you to eat something protein rich without causing digestive problems. You could even add vegan protein powder or soy milk to it to make a more easily digestible protein shake.

I realize that black cherry juice isn’t the same exact thing as tart cherry juice. Tart cherries seem to have more healing potential, but black cherries have similar benefits, even if their anthocyanin content isn’t as high. I used black cherry juice because it is cheaper.

Echoing my previous post, it is sometimes difficult to classify these vegan kefir drinks. Are they “beer”, “wine” or should kefir be its own category? Because it is based on fermented fruit this will eventually taste more like wine than beer.

If anyone has any questions or suggestions I would love to hear from you!