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| Pineapple Coconut |
So I'm still brewing Soda, and Jody's still rolling his eyes at me. Dawn's still tasting everything I make and she's still not complained of a belly ache so I guess it's all good.
This time I'm using Water Kefir instead of the Ginger Bug. I thought maybe the taste of the ginger was a bit much and the flavor of the juice would come through better if I used Water Kefir grains. Unlike the Ginger Bug, you have to order the Kefir grains online, you can't just make them from stuff you have laying around the house (water, ginger and weird sugar.) The kefir grains come dehydrated and look like really coarse brown sugar, they don't look anything like grain. They say you can eat them but I kind of needed them to make my 'concoctions'. The first two batches of sugar water that I made with the kefir grains were not used for soda, they were just poured out.
Then I started my batch for the soda. Just like with the Ginger Bug, De-clorinated water (bottled is fine if it says "Ionized") Sucanat and the hydrated grains.
I put a little water in the jar and stired the Sucanat to dissolve.
Dump in the grains. See... they don't look like grain. They look like crystals but feel like something kind of rubbery. I have NO idea what these things are.
Yeah, I'm drinking the residual liquid off them!
Top it off with more water.
Cover it with my specially customized super white flour sack dish towel
that's never been used for anything else besides covering weird concoctions.
Place it on a shelf in the cupboard where it can stay at a moderate temperature out of the light
and happy beside the container of chocolate chips.
So the next day it looks like this... a little lighter in color and not as cloudy. I tasted a little of it and it was still sweet. I think one of the mistakes I had been making was that I was letting the kefir set for 48 hours then adding the juice. It quickly ate up all the sugar in the juice during the fermenting stage leaving the taste of the soda a lot like a seltzer and not sweet like soda.
This is some Coconut Soda that I made before I figured out not to wait 48 hours. It was like tonic water, so to sweeten it after the fermentation stage I added Cream de Coco!
When I sweeten, I sweeten, I don't mess around. Now, take my advice here if you decide to do this, if you have to add a sweetener of any kind after you have fermented your soda, add a tiny bit at a time.
LUCY allert!!! Don't take a funnel and pour 1/2 a cup of sweetener into the bottle. You will have a geyser on your hands. It's entertaining to your friends, but just don't do it.
Look it's got a head on it like beer! It was really yummy!
(Another thing I have since done is to use organic sugar, not Sucanant, and add just a 1/4 tsp of molasses. Sucanant has a really strong taste.)
So last Wednesday I was about to make my juice and I decided to just make a double batch of juice and use 1/2 of it in the water kefir since my batch was ready. I juiced my fruits and veg like I do everyday. Remember how the pineapple/orange juice with the Ginger Bug had really created a bubbly effect? That was fresh juice that I'd juiced.
Since my juicer is a vertical macerating juicer and not a centrifugal, it lets some pulp through, so I strained it. (If you ever want to know anything about juicers, just ask, I've gone through 3 different kinds.)
I blended in a couple of beet cubes (I juice a bunch of beets all at one time, and then freeze them and only use one cube per glass of juice. Too much beet juice leaves your teeth a lovely neon red.
I had enough kefir and juice for two bottles of soda and I drank the rest of the juice.
Once bottled, the bottles of soda were tucked into the pantry with their friends. Waiting to created some kind of sparkling drink.
Jump ahead 2 days, I forgot that the soda was in the pantry. I pulled out a bottle to test the bubbly-ness.
That's not a real word... yet.
There's always a little sediment on the bottom of the bottle so you just turn it over one time. WOAH Bubbly-ness!
LUCY ALERT!!!!
Word of warning.... if you make soda, before opening the bottle, put it in the sink
which I did and cover it with a wet dish cloth
which I didn't! Ya see that don't ya! It exploded!
All over my kitchen!
And I mean all OVER the kitchen. I was happy though, I still had my hair wrapped in a towel after I'd washed it earlier or I would have had to rewash my hair.
I was wearing my white robe and it was now neon red splattered, not just on the front but also on the back! But I didn't get any on the ceiling!!! That's because I put my hand over the bottle and it all squirted out to the side. FUN!
Jody walked in just after I'd rewashed all the dishes in the dish drainer, and wiped down the cabinet doors, the counter tops, the stove and fridge. The cat was in the living room taking a bath... The floor was still covered and I was walking tip-toe between the spots on the floor, trying not to slip or spread them any worse.
I froze in my tip-toe tracks and met him with a 'deer in the headlights' look. In this sort of situation, you have to start cleaning from the top down.
He took one look at my magenta splattered body and just shook his head and went to the garage. He didn't even ask what had happened.
What's he doing home at 10 in the morning anyway? He's not supposed to be here during Lucy time.
The results... from my official critic, "nice color, earthy... like a beet with a hint of carrot." Dawn, Water Kefir Soda taster. She took a bottle home last night.
I made a batch of coconut soda Friday and we tasted it last night too.... YUM. I'll start making that to dilute with some Cruzan Rum, forget all those other flavors. Dawn took a bottle of it home too.
Too bad summer is almost over. But wait, I'm not living on a summer schedule anymore. I'm back in the real world!
I am back to work tomorrow with a whole new life
new job!! I'll try to see what kind of Lucy channeling I can come up with for next weekend.
Y'all have a great week.
