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theuserformallyknownasd00d

Ethnobotanical Kefir

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G'day g'day

I've been growing water kefir grains for 2mths now, my initial purchase of 2tbs grains has since multiplied into enough to do 15ltrs a day. I've started collecting well water off a friend as it's so large I cannot afford to keep it going by buying mineral water haha

This got me thinking, what else can be secondarily fermented in the kefir? So I got 5 x 500ml jars and collected some of my favourite ethnobotanicals. Kava, kanna and heimia to name 3. In went a standard dose, plus some for the chef, and I plan to leave them all to ferment for 10-15 days.

I rinsed all fresh herb with ISO alcohol and dried after washing off all debris and soil, then plonked into the jars which were sanitised in the dishwasher and the covers (stockings) were sealed in a bag with glen 20 to sanitise. Thus it all should be alright to ferment for 15 days with no contams. I usually secondarily ferment fruits etc for 24hrs so at least I hope they don't contam.

I will then bottle each one and let fizz up with a bit of sugar to give me a coca cola fiz biz sorta thingy. It's usually just a flat fiz but if ya leave it for a week they get awesome fiz biz. But the longer ya leave em the stronger and yeastier the flavours become...

Sooooo hopefully I can report some interesting experiences in 18-25 days depending on he fiz wait... At worst ill have drank some probiotics.....

Peace

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In a complete hypothetical sense... What do you think would happen to actives such as silly Simons and masculine Pedro? Poooooh that's naughty and we'll probably never know...

Hang on, faaaark, I haven't even hit google with any of this.... Maybe I just wasted time and good sugar... I can't believe I forgot about googles, this better not groundhog day

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will be interesting to see what responses you get if any.

what kind of positive results are you hoping for? maybe an active becomes more readily absorbed or even transformed into something unexpected? it seems as though negative outcomes are far more likely.

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Hmmm what am I hoping for... Well I'm well versed in the effects that they'll all deliver by themselves, so I guess I'm expecting for that to be the same, or at least in a similar ball park considering I just use water to extract the good stuff anyways... The only one is kanna that I've never consumed via drinking..

Bioavailability I'm hoping will be up, transformed into something else tho... Well na, because cultures have been using kefir to ferment things for longer than I care to research ;) if it was that simple then we'd all be drinking our favs with kefir!

What do you put down to a negative outcome? It not working in general or the fact it won't potentiate anything? Or the fact I may die? Get sick, or have just wasted time/sugar?

Anyways, I'll keep you all updated, well as best I can anyways...

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negative just meant maybe some of your actives will become lunch for the bacteria.

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Any updates?

I'm still working this stuff out, but various google-sources have suggested (and this is just for herbal extracts in general, nuthin specific here) making a tea, and then adding sugar + kefir grains to the tea, to avoid the risk of plant matter sitting around going funky. I figure if the tea has efficiently extracted the actives, then any magical kefir-activation should still happen, it shouldn't require the depleted plant/fungal material in there for that. On the other hand, all those poorly-documented enzymes present in water-kefir, coupled with a bit of ethanol & a nicely acidic environment, is going to change the conditions somewhat from just pouring hot water over the plants. Whether this would be better or worse for the actives would depend what they were I guess. So psilocybin mushrooms for example might even be made less active over time, as the more-stable psilocybin is broken down into unstable psilocin by acids/enzymes. But for other compounds, who knows, it could convert them into something more active, or something entirely new maybe. I seem to remember some old discussions about converting mitragynine to more potent forms via fermentation, but I don't know if anything ever came of it. Dragibus had an article about kratom tej, so you'd think if fermenting it made a magical 20x bevvy he'd have mentioned it, lol.

Kombucha might be a good candidate for this too, maybe better than water-kefir grains as the kombucha scoby is already adapted to living in tea rather than sugar-water, it might be less likely to be fazed by lots of tannins, alkaloids, and whatever other gunk is in the plants.

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Tangentially related; I've been doing some experiments with kombucha, using combinations of chinese herbs alongside a bit of black tea and sugar to make sure the culture still gets the nutrients it needs. At the moment I've got a batch that was based off ginseng which is a good energy kick, but you could probably use entheogens as well...

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Some of these had a nice flavour and kick but nothing too pronounced. The kava and hemia had great flavour and some effects similar to what you'd expect a tea to of them to feel like. The kanna was nasty and I couldn't even smell it, did two rounds of this and yeh nasty in both

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I know it's 4 years since the last post but started brewing water kefir recently and was hoping to find some more info on adding things from your garden, more interested in crazy flavours then effects. 

it's nice with a second ferement with some juice and ginger etc but feel the potential flavour notes that could be hit with some herbs would be crazy.

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5 hours ago, DJ-MC said:

I know it's 4 years since the last post but started brewing water kefir recently and was hoping to find some more info on adding things from your garden, more interested in crazy flavours then effects. 

 

it's nice with a second ferement with some juice and ginger etc but feel the potential flavour notes that could be hit with some herbs would be crazy.

Glad you posted as I never saw this thread originally and it's a damn cool idea.

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good pump, guys!:wink:

 

so that give me the chance to add my few cents...

 

maybe it was this thread, which made me experiment with water kefir.

I experimented with it a few years ago, buying the grains from the local health food shop, they were exxi (25 bucks or so).

I remember not exactly what fruits I did use, but one of them was lemons from my lemon tree.

the result was spectacular, it kicked my brain in similar fashion as alcohol does.

I don't know, if it's in this thread (I only quikly re read it) but some people suggested, this process could help "herbs" to cross the blood brain barrier.

if you don't know what that term means, do research it, it's important to know about the bbb, as a shaman.

Edited by withdrawl clinic
dyslexia
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just burped some tulsi apple pomegrenate smells pretty good!

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guess what, i found my kefir grains today, and i believe they have been in the fridge in a clean jar, for at least 3 years.

 

this might answer the question, which is often asked on the net, but hardly answered, to a satisfying degree.

how long do cleaned kefir grains survive!!

my instincts say, my grains are still alive.:)

but time will tell, and i plan to let you know the outcome of my todays brew:

5 heaped tea spoons white sugar

5 thin slices of galangal

4 finger limes, two of them thinly sliced, the rest squeezed into the jar, and added whole partly emptied fruit

1/4 flat teaspoon of bi carb

1l of tank water, previously boiled and than waited to reach room temperature 

 

late edit: sorry to say those grains did not survive my storage!!!

Edited by withdrawl clinic
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fuck yeah have only been doing it for a lil bit and can see how these cultures are so hardy.
 

keen to hear the progress, mine has been a bit hit and miss... refrigerating them at the perfect time seems to be the main factor with my tendency to start 10 things at once leaves lots of room to forgot with out date stickers lol

 

need to start drying them and sharing they grow so damn fast! 

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10 hours ago, DJ-MC said:

 

 

need to start drying them and sharing they grow so damn fast! 

i think to remember, hearing that one can, "dry them out", and maybe this increases the shelf life.

mine, got bought, a bit wet and i stored them a bit wet, in the fridge, not the freezer.

 

you as well hint that at times you loose focus, with the grains, an issue, i have as well, as i don't want to be slave to the kefir grains.

meaning i would be very interested to hear about how to take a break, from brewing, and how to store them...

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drying the grains out must be the way to store them,

my grains "stored wet" did not survive...:blush:

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