Re: Re: Switching Keifer Grains to Water

[Guest guest]

So, uh, does anyone have water keifer grains they'd like to send me?

I'll pay for postage, of course.

[Guest guest]

says who? if you read Dom's Kefir site, he talks about making other types

of kefir and although the grains may not reproduce like they do with milk,

they aren't dead by any means.

http://users.chariot.net.au/~dna/kefirpage.html#alternativekefir

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Dairy based grains cannot be converted to water kefir grains.

They will eventually disintegrate and die. Chances are your

dairy grains have been permanantly damaged depending on

how long they have been in water at room temperature.

Dairy grains can be used to ferment batches of non-dairy

media by putting them back in milk in alternating batches or

using a media that is at least 50% dairy/50% non-dairy.

Your best bet would be to also obtain the non-dairy water

kefir grains.

Blinky

[Guest guest]

:Message: 54805 From: Bujak Received: Tue Sep 14, 2004 9:22 PM

:Subject: RE: Re: Switching Keifer Grains to Water

:

:says who? if you read Dom's Kefir site, he talks about making other types

:of kefir and although the grains may not reproduce like they do with milk,

:they aren't dead by any means.

I did read his site and if cultured long enough exclusively on

nondairy media the grains will be permantly damaged at some

point in time.

Darrell

[Guest guest]

>Dairy grains can be used to ferment batches of non-dairy

>media by putting them back in milk in alternating batches or

>using a media that is at least 50% dairy/50% non-dairy.

>Your best bet would be to also obtain the non-dairy water

>kefir grains.

>

>Blinky

I use my " extras " to ferment water-based stuff, like kefir beer.

They do die eventually. But I get so many extras from my milk

kefiili that I have a lot in " spare storage " so it isn't an issue.

If you only have one set of grains ... keep them in milk! But

my juice grains last about 6 months, unless they get in

preservative-laced juice or I leave them too long and they get

too much alchohol or acid.

I tried water-kefir too but they never did replicate, and the kefir

was not as good as the milk-kefir used in juice.

As for " killing babies " ... each colony is a clone of all the previous

ones, so really, it's not a " life form " we are talking about here.

Bacteria live a day or two, then they split ... the grains are " houses "

for bacteria made of kefiran, protein gleaned from casein I think, but

they are not the bacteria themselves. As the grains are used in juice

or other water-based things, the bacterial inhabitors change, and

eventually the houses disintegrate.

Heidi Jean