Incredible Water Kefir Growth After One Week

Somewhere in this jar are the 3 tablespoons of water kefir grains I bought from Ebay. After a week the grains are like rabbits on steroids! 

Look at the greedy jelly chunks. They're eating me out of sugar. I've started giving them away to friends and failing that, I'll have to eat them. 

So how am I getting this amazing growth?

It's not due to fancy water kefir making equipment. The only thing I invested in were the grains. Everything else was already in my kitchen. I have two of the above jars, which are for pickles. I use those for the first fermentation. Then I have two narrower and taller passata jars for the second fermentation and storage. Their mouths are small enough to capture carbonation and large enough to decant without a funnel. I don't use flip top bottles because they're fiddly and hard to clean.

And then I use a metal sieve, a no-no in the water kefir world. With the way I decant the water kefir, there's hardly any contact with the metal. There's no harm to the grains if they are sitting in the sieve for a very short period of time.

I don't feed my grains with anything else except half and half moscavdo sugar and white cane sugar in the first fermentation. My grains LOVE moscavdo sugar, probably because of the extra nutrients. Gives them a nice golden "tan" too.

And finally I use filtered tap water. None of that fancy spring water for me. I live in north London where the water is hard. Maybe that's one of the secrets to the wild growth-there's alot of minerals in the water already. 

I've dropped a square inch of boiled egg shell with the grains as an experiment. The shells are shrinking or absorbing into the fermented water. If you need to add more minerals in the water, use eggshells. It really works if the grains are mineral deprived.

So having broken some of the rules set by the youtubers and bloggers about water kefir making, you're probably wondering how the heck am I getting this incredible growth. Here is my list of dos and don'ts if you want your grains to grow:

Water Kefir DOs:

1) Use unrefined sugar-it has more nutrients and the grains thrive on it. You don't have to shell out for rapdura or palm sugar. Raw or better yet, moscavdo sugar works well.

2) Place the jars in a dark, not cold spot-My jars have their own cosy corner in my kitchen.

3) Use filtered tap water-if that's what you drink already. As it's not chlorinated it's fine to use.

4) Watch the water temperature-I use hot water to dissolve my sugar but always top up with room temperature water and test before pouring it on my grains. If water is fairly warmer than you, it's too warm.

Water Kefir DON'Ts:

1) Sterilise anything-but of course I'm sanitary. I don't double dip. I wash everything with detergent and hot water. I think sterilisation is overkill-literally.

2) Disturb the grains too much-most of them stay in the pickle jars and by not breaking, thats how they get fat. Only a small amount of grains makes it into the sieve and I carefully return them into their jar.

3) Cram the grains-as long the grains are in contact with each other, it should encourage growth but they don't like to be crammed and have to compete for food. 

If you're still not getting any growth or the grains are shrinking or becoming slimy. It might be your water supply or they're too weak to reproduce and you need to source new grains.