The lazy man's approach to water kefir
February 26, 2011 4:44 AM   Subscribe

I acquired some water kefir grains and I am maybe taking a lazy approach to caring for them, is it safe? And if not what should I be doing?

Last week I acquired some water kefir grains. The woman I got them from put them in a jar, threw in some sugar, a dried apricot, a slice of lemon, filled up the jar with water and closed it up.

After a couple of days I drank some (decanting about 3/4 the liquid). It was fine, although not great. I dumped some sugar into the remaining water and kefir grains in the jar, filled it up, and then drank some more two days later. I repeated that process about three times. Today I took out the apricot (it adds a kind of gross smell - but definitely not a rotten smell) and used lemon juice instead of an actual lemon.

All of that is to ask - is what I am doing safe? What happens if I swallow some kefir grains by accident? How wrong can it all go? Is that dried fruit really necessary? Doesn't the kefir just need carbohydrates of any kind as a food source (with sugar being the easiest to process)?
posted by molecicco to Food & Drink (2 answers total)
 
You'll be fine; ingesting the grains is totally safe. More kefir info than you could possibly want to know can be found here: http://users.sa.chariot.net.au/~dna/kefirpage.html (scroll about halfway down for water kefir detail. More links at the bottom of the page.) Fwiw, Dom, the guy who runs this site, was incredibly open and kind when I dialogued with him a few years ago and he'd probably be more than happy to answer any questions.
posted by cuddles.mcsnuggy at 8:02 AM on February 26, 2011 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: cool cuddles, thanks!
posted by molecicco at 1:21 PM on February 26, 2011


« Older Can I compete with his ex girlfriend?   |   Where too after Rome in March for beach holiday Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.