Fermented Madness: An Overdue Explanation.

Our Kenton House brews a small feast of fermented numminess (my BFF’s way of saying “yummy-ness… or so I think…)

We normally brew two things regularly: Kombucha and Raw Milk Kefir. Briefly:

Kombucha:
What? A sparkling, fermented tea drink that is slightly vinegary, slightly sweet. Began being consumed in Asia about 2,000 years ago for health.
Why? “As the Kombucha culture digests the sugar it produces a range of organic acids like glucuronic acid, gluconic acid, lactic acid, acetic acid, butyric acid, malic acid and usnic acid; vitamins, particularly B vitamins and vitamin C; as well as amino acids, enzymes. And of course there are all the benefits of the probiotic microorganisms themselves. The Kombucha culture is a biochemical powerhouse in your kitchen.” Read more about these acids and beneficial organisms here.
How? Using a kombucha culture, or “scoby”, you BASICALLY add sweetened black tea and let it ferment for about a week in a warm place in the house before bottling the liquid and starting all over. There are all sorts of variations- sometimes we add juice at bottling time and ferment a bit longer on the counter. Other times, we might throw in herbs like chamomile and lavender and fruits like blueberries while it ferments, which not only makes it tastier, but adds some of the medicinal benefits of the herbs and teas (this particular recipe would be very calming, for instance.)

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Raw Milk Kefir
What? A fermented milk drink, we use whole, raw milk from a local family owned farm to ensure the highest quality nutrients in the milk with all the beneficial living organisms that would be otherwise disposed of in the homogenization/pasteurization process. You can use any milk, however. It produces a sour, fizzy, plain yogurt like drink useful for a variety of things, esp in our daily smoothies.
Why? Oh, if only my gut and lady parts could speak. Kefir contains a variety of beneficial organisms (remember the wave of “probiotic” reports and all the “contains 1,000 billion live probiotics” written on the outside of your yogurt in the past few years? Well, this stuff is the motherload. In addition to live probiotics, kefir has antimicrobial and antifungal properties, and contains a variety of vitamins and minerals including “calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, B2 and B12, vit K, A, D, as well as tryptophan, one of the essential amino acids abundant in kefir, is well known for its relaxing effect on the nervous system.” (Tryptophan; the “sleepy” element of turkey at Thanksgiving). Because of all these nutrients, kefir has been linked to improving a variety of things, such as “metabolic disorders, atherosclerosis, and allergies, tuberculosis, cancer, poor digestion, candidiasis [yeast infections and thrush, ladies!], osteoporosis, hypertension, HIV and heart disease.” Bonus: I am very lactose intolerant to store bought dairy (raw I am less sensitive to), but when I have a smoothie each day I am FREE of gas, bloating, and discomfort. FREE, I tell you. It’s amazing.
How? Easy peasy. Raw milk in clean container, add kefir grain. Stir with wooden spoon every so often, usually by 24 hours in warm place on counter (with covering of a clean cloth) your kefir is ready to be strained (using no metals) and restart the next batch. The kefir grain gets bigger and bigger and often breaks off “baby” kefir grains you can then pass on to lucky friends We use our strained kefir milk in a daily smoothie: about equal parts kefir with frozen organic fruit (berries, bananas, peaches, so on) and about 1 tbsp on raw honey per cup. Blend well, pour into tall cup and ENJOY!

Okay, moving forward:

so last week we offered up some of our extra raw milk kefir grains to a gal I met in my homeschooling group who traded us for 1/2 cup of her WATER kefir grains and a few bars of her homemade, natural soaps. Great score.

Lacey popped the little suckers into water with turbinado and raisins and wa-la, today we sipped from the cup of another one of natures healing tonic wonders. This stuff is quite mild and tasty, and can be made into a variety of sweet, fizzy soda drinks using fruit juices, etc. It has the same beneficial ingredients as the raw milk kefir, but less costly because you don’t have to use all your raw milk, lol.

I’ve been saying for awhile that my next venture into fermentation would be Mead. Mead is a sparkling “wine” type of drink, made with water, honey, and yeast. I was very interested in learning how to do this because with Mead you get the benefits of raw honey (oh man, they are VAST- but that’s another post. Google it, lol.) PLUS the fermentation methods nutrients, PLUS you get to sip your homemade wine and stop spending all your money on it! Sweet!

Well, come to find out while researching about water kefir recipes, you can make MEAD with kefir grains. So the insanity has truly begun. Adding some raw honey, cinnamon and cloves to warm water and kefir grains, I am now brewing homemade honey wine! It takes about two weeks total before you can sip it from a wine glass, but you can bet I’ll be back to report on this. I’m interested in how alcoholic this is though, lol.

Here is our cabinet of brews (kombucha not pictured since she rests on the top of the fridge for extra warmth): From left: raw milk kefir; spiced mead; water kefir with dates and apricots. (pictured uncovered but this is NOT how you leave them on your counter!)

(Additional Hint: Buying raw, local honey isn’t so bad if you order it through Azure Standard for about $23 a gallon- our household of 6-who-count-as-people go through about a gallon every 6 weeks – it is used for all of our daily sugar needs, from brews to baking to smoothies, what have you.)

Other homemade goodies I’ve concocted this week:

Homemade Coconut Milk Ice cream: This is my first go at homemade ice cream, and I didn’t even have an ice cream maker, lol.
2 cans of coconut milk, 1/4 cup or so of raw honey, 1 cup frozen raspberries from the farm! – in blender til creamy, place in freezer for a few hours in a shallow container and mix or re-blend every 30 minutes until mixture no longer gets “icy” but stays ice creamy. Keeps for about a week. I also made a cinnamon/cardamom version. Yum. (and not only guilt-free but NUTRITIOUS. Again, google the benefits of coconut milk… endless!)

Whipped Lavender Honey Butter: Our herbs hanging in the window are done, so I’ve used up some lavender and raw honey to whip together with organic, sweet cream butter in the food processor for a tasty addition to a slice of toast with tea in the morning

Good stuff.