[Foodhacking_at_camp] Kefir culture question

[Alexander Chemeris]

Hi Frantisek,

Thank you for your answer and good luck with your master thesis!

I actually was concerned about milk kefir, as it's the one we cultivate (and
this what we call "kefir" in Russia, water kefir is known under a different
name and is not popular at all). Is what you said about water kefir apply to
milk kefir too?

--
Alexander Chemeris
Sent from my Android device. Sorry for my brevity.

On Oct 10, 2011 3:00 PM, "Frantisek Apfelbeck" <algoldor at yahoo.com> wrote:

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...
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