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Fermenting Friday: Kefir

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My kombucha was a fail. The SCOBY wasn’t viable and it was tossed. I’ll procure another and try again.

This is my second attempt at making kefir. It’s on the shelf for its photo shoot. Do not leave your kefir in the sunlight! Heat will kill the grains.

My first attempt at kefir didn’t work out super well. I put too many kefir grains in with my milk. The ratio is important. I was a bit cocky because the hands-on part of making kefir is so.damn.easy. When you have too many grains it can grow very quickly.

Bottled kefir
Air tight bottle. Don’t leave it in the sunlight!

I ended up with a fist sized blob of what I thought was grains within two days. The rest of the fermenting milk did not thicken into the yogurt-y texture I was anticipating. It was still like, well, milk. Turns out a lot of the mass’o’grains was curds. I continued letting the thing culture and by day 4 it the batch had split into curds and whey.

This wasn’t a tragedy. It’s basically just messy. I thought the grains were still viable. The curds and whey are edible. Curds coalesce into a sour cream consistency and can be used likewise. The whey can be used many ways including as a starter culture for other ferments.

The trick is to get the kefir grains out of the big blob. I did that by first straining it. Then it was time to get hands-on and squeeze it. The kefir grains were harder than the curds and had a texture which didn’t give when pinched between thumb and index finger. Voila! Rescued!

The proper ratio is about 1 TBSP grains to 1 quart of milk. And, you’re supposed to gently shake the mixture a few times a day to spread the grainy goodness throughout the batch. Whoops.

So I created the second batch. This time with the suggested ratio and requisite shaking. I drained the grains after 48 hours. Then I did a second ferment with a sealed lid. The internet says this might thicken it plus the anaerobic environment leads to carbonation. Cool!

This batch had the kefir-like sourness and there was carbonation so I declared the batch done, strained out the grains, bottled it with an airtight cap, and put it in the fridge. The “milk” did not thicken up. Just like the first batch.

I drank a scant .25 cup and it tasted familiar like the kefir one buys at the grocery, sans thickness. Best to introduce potentially new bacteria to your gut slowly. Sure enough, I had a mild message from my colon within 2 hours. Take that Benefiber.

I ate the kefir “cheese” on baked potatoes. Verdict? Yum. Definitely a good sour cream substitute. I imagine the heat isn’t good for the live cultures so I consider this a culinary rather than nutritional use.

I have made five additional batches as of today, all with secondary fermenting. and have gotten the same result. They all taste like kefir. I’m calling it a mild success. My theory is the grains are sluggish. I’ve heard that they might strengthen up again after several batches, so I’ll keep making batches as long as I have access to milk. I am under isolation with the rest of the world as of this writing so I am not going out for groceries unless strictly necessary.

I’ll also try a different brand of milk. It’s also heard that some pasteurized milk is ultra-pasteurized and the grains don’t like that (this merits more research on my part because right now I don’t understand the implications of utra-processing vs. regular). I’m not ready to quit on fermenting either ‘booch or dairy kefir. I may need to procure starters which are more happy and robust. And, it may be awhile before I can do that because of the pandemic. Meanwhile, I have done my usual sauerkraut. Just because I’m stuck at home doesn’t mean I stop getting good bacteria. Stay safe and healthy my friends.

 

Fermenting Friday: Kombucha

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SCOBYI got myself a new kombucha SCOBY from my friend Eloise, along with some kefir grains. I’ve been relying on expensive probiotic supplements to bridge the gap and, well, it’s kind of dumb to spend good money when I can have the benefit of food nutrients in addition to the good bacteria. I’m trying to be better about making something cultured as part of my weekly food prep routines.

I’ve made saurkraut, yogurt, and rejuvelac successfully in the past. This is my first time doing kombucha and kefir.

A lot of fermentation techniques are super simple to do. Kombucha is one of the easy ones. I really like the explanations and videos given by Angelica over at You Brew Kombucha. I’ll leave the detailed how-to to her. BTW, SCOBY is an acronym for Symbiotic Culture Of Bacteria and Yeast. Rhymes with Adobe.

The basic method is that you make sweet tea, add a bunch of water, tea, “starter tea,”and the SCOBY. Then you wait for nature to take its course.

The yeast eats the sugar and proliferates, producing carbon dioxide. If you brew it long enough in an airtight container, that means it’s going to get fizzy. It’s also going to get more sour the longer it ferments. My spouse used to call kombucha “vinegar pop.”

Of course there are some additional things to do besides the basic process. Ensure you don’t use metal containers or utensils. You must use real sugar. Don’t worry. You won’t be adding it to your diet. It gets eaten by the SCOBY.

You need to ensure you cool down your tea before adding the other ingredients because if the liquid is too hot it might kill the good living microorganisms.

The process is not tricky despite the little rules.It makes plain ‘booch. If you want to add flavoring or lots of fizz, you’ll need to do a second fermentation. No big deal. It’s as simple as adding the tasty stuff and resealing the container.

SCOBYs require some care and feeding. As you make more batches, you’ll have a lot of SCOBY. Put it in a container and cover it with the ‘booch. Keep it out of the sun, at room temperature, covered. You can put the “SCOBY hotel” in the fridge. That will slow the proliferation. It’s totally fine. When you want to make more ‘booch, it will just mean it takes a little longer for the bacteria and yeast to get going.

You can see from the photo that I’ve gotten underway with my kombucha. I’ve also started the kefir. I’ll keep you posted on how it goes.

Review: How to Eat

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Mark Bittman, the former New York times celebrated columnist renowned for his books on “How to cook everything,” “How to cook everything vegetarian,” and his much publicized weight loss and promotion of eating vegan till dinner for health, has authored a new book with David L. Katz. Katz is an expert on nutrition and the founding director of the Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center.

I give “How to eat: All your food and diet questions answered” an 9.5 /10. It’s short (222 pages of content), well researched with proper citations and a bibliography, and written in an informal engaging style. It’s accessible to newbies without a background in science, incorporating discussion of the research within a question and answer format.

The authors have scientific credibility so the content is trustworthy.  It covers popular diets and eating styles as well as giving no-nonsense advice on how to eat, as promised by the title. It also provides an overview of macros, the basic building blocks of nutrition. Best of all, IMHO, it gives advice on how to evaluate nutrition research. There’s a lot of hype and commercial proselytizing in nutrition.

Dieting is big business. “How to Eat” advocates for a balanced approach to food consumption with “dietary patterns” vs. strict eating rules. I give it kudos because it fulfills its purpose as a basic myth-busting overview of diet. It’s reassuring to know that we all already know what to do by applying common sense to our food intake. Keep it real, keep it whole and unprocessed, focus on plants regardless of whether or not you include meat or animal products in your diet.

My one – very minor – quibble is that I would have liked some pointers — beyond the bibliography — of where to go for more in-depth yet written for the lay person information or a link to a web site which provides up to the minute information on some of the topics covered. This wasn’t the point of the book, so it’s not really fair of me to expect that. There are plenty of good resources available for that type of nutrition news coverage. Why reinvent the wheel?

This is a very good start for anybody wanting a good overview of nutrition, a review of diet(s) you’re likely to choose, and solid advice on how to eat that applies across the board whatever type of diet you decide to implement.

On supplements: veracity of claims

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There are things to consider when evaluating whether your supplements are worth taking. Are they what they purport to be? Are they effective? How will I know? Is what I find out trustworthy?

I want to ensure that I’m taking what was sold to me and it that it works. Supplements are expensive. I average $45 per month. Ouch. It’s important to me that I get what I’m paying for. Government oversight is going to vary depending on where you live. I can only speak to the situation in the United States.

Dietary supplements and ingredients are regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the U.S. There’s a catch though. According to their web site, it’s up to the manufacturers to ensure their products are safe and accurately labelled prior to sale. The FDA has to prove a product is unsafe or that the labeling is misleading to take it off the market. They have an advisory list of things which are under evaluation. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the ingredient is unsafe.

Supplement makers aren’t allowed to make any sort of medical claim that an ingredient can be used to treat, diagnose,  prevent, or cure a disease. One will see standard disclaimers on packaging so they can cover their ass. It’s not clear from the FDA web site if they evaluate ingredients on their own. They take reports of adverse events and investigate.

Third party testing is gold standard for “is it what it is?” and the scientific literature is where one finds the trustworthy information. There are two independent testing organizations in the U.S. – ConsumerLab and NSF International. I encourage you to seek out supplements which have a third party evaluation. The product label will indicate if the supplement has been vetted by those organizations.

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about my supplement stack. I take supplements based on recommendations from my physician and my psychiatrist. I’m on B12, L-methylfolate, D3, and magnesium glycinate and eat a lot of turmeric. Occasionally I’ll add in some zinc when I need some immune support. Supplements are necessary for my optimum health so I spend the time evaluating the best choices, checking 3rd party evaluations, and reviewing the science.

There’s a protocol for determining if the science supports the efficacy of a given substance.

* who wrote the article? What credentials does the author have as expert?
* where is the article published? There is a difference between a blog post, a magazine, and a peer-reviewed article. Something which has been vetted by other experts has more.
*when was the article written? The more up-to-date the information, the better
*what type of article is it? Research articles can be exploratory studies, observational, experimental – with varying degrees of reliability, epidemiological, statistical, and “meta,” which is a review of all the research with advanced statistical techniques to determine overall state of the research
*how was the research funded? Can you trust research which was funded by a manufacturer vs. self-funded vs. government or grant funded? What is the personal financial interest of the researcher? This constitutes an evaluation of potential bias.

Ultimately, one is responsible for choosing what one ingests into their body. Doing an evaluation for yourself is an insurance policy for yourself.

 

Fermenting Friday: Sandor Katz

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One of my favorite recipe books is “Wild fermentation: the flavor, nutrition, and craft of live-culture foods” by Sandor Katz. I was a fan of home fermenting before probiotics became trendy. Fermented foods are good functional nutrition. I try (but often fail) to put up some cultured food every Friday. So far, I’ve only fermented saurkraut, yogurt, and rejuvelac. Successfully. Plus I’ve read a few books about other types of home-fermenting.

Book. Sandor Katz. Wild Fermentation 1st edThe gut microbiome is integral to health and initial exploratory research is associating with a variety of conditions such as IBS, and depression. At it’s most basic, the bacteria in your gut are a requirement for optimal digestion. Making probiotic rich foods at home is both easy and fun and doesn’t require a big outlay of money.

This book by Katz is the best I’ve read IMHO. I’ve owned a copy since the first edition was published. It’s not your typical recipe book. It takes a more narrative approach which includes Katz’s journey to becoming well-known in culinary circles for his advocacy of ferments.

Another thing I like about it is that includes basic instructions. It’s well suited to a total beginner. I also like that it covers a variety of fermented foods. Fruits, vegetables, grains, beverages (including brewing alcohol), are all included.

Overall the author’s style is engaging. The book is a short read at 187 pages. Sadly, my first edition was destroyed when field mice invaded my house. I’ve since replaced the book and it’s becoming as well worn as my original copy.

Good probiotics are expensive. Spending your hard earned cash isn’t required. Making fermented foods at home is a good way to stretch your supplement budget.