[Foodhacking_at_camp] Kefir culture question

[Frantisek Apfelbeck]

Hi Alex and all!
You bet that the list is alive but I'm just finishing my master thesis (for the last few months grrrr :((() so I'm rather quiet.

I'll be posting soon concerning the Food Hacking Base presence it the 28c3 in Berlin at the end of December.

Concerning the water kefir. The culture is in theory "immortal". However I do recommend to feed it well, which would include addition of various minerals like magnesium, calcium, potassium etc. on regular basis, bit of sea salt should do I believe. Great source of various minerals and organic compounds are really dark rich sugars with lots of "molasses" in it. Based on my experience you do not have to do every brew with this type of sugar which has a very specific strong flavor, once in a few weeks should  be fine, the microbes should get bit stored for a while but I did not do too much reading on this aspect yet, so if someone can clarify this that would be cool. Making the drink in a black tea infusion has also very beneficial effect on the microbes in the culture, I've very goo experience with kombucha culture made in this way (compared to white and green teas, herbal infusions and just sugar solutions without any other ingredients). I also recommend
 to add some probiotic cultures from time to time, like a bit of yogurt, sourdough etc. to kind of hybridize the culture. However be careful with adding kombucha, it will start to make the cellulose matrix on the top very fast.


I hope this info helped a bit, I'm going to dig out an article about water kefir which is popular but really nice. 


Anyway I'll be in touch, I've come back to my thesis, the final version of introduction is due today.

Sincerely,

Frantisek

PS I'll be sending a news letter about my activities within the last half year, I'll post it here too because the Food hacking Base is one of the crucial projects done in this time.






________________________________
From: Alexander Chemeris <alexander.chemeris at gmail.com>
To: Food Hacking at Camp 2011 <foodhacking_at_camp at lists.hackerspaces.org>
Sent: Sunday, October 9, 2011 10:46 PM
Subject: [Foodhacking_at_camp] Kefir culture question

Hi,

I hope this list is still alive.

Do I need to somehow "renew" the culture after some use, i.e. is it
"degrading" after some time or it is stable enough to survive for the
long time? This is a question from my friend biologist and seems i
don't know the answer.

PS Frantisek, thank you very much for the culture! I enjoy kefir from
it by myself, but I also passed it to my Russian friends in Barcelona
and they're extremely thankful. As meny Russians they're very used to
kefir, but they can't buy good on in shops there. Now they're making
it at home and say many thanks for it.

-- 
Regards,
Alexander Chemeris.
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