Guest guest Posted January 10, 2005 Report Share Posted January 10, 2005 After reading many of the posts on kefiring fruit juices I thought I would be adventurous and juiced 6 tangerines, added 1/4 cup Rapadura, 1 teaspoon sea salt and filled the remainder of a half gallon jug with water. I thawed out some kefir grains that I had been keeping and plopped them into the mix. It's been three days and I think they are dead. Nothing is happening -- no fizz is developing. The odor is not changing and the grains look to be shrinking. Any ideas? Is citrus to acidic for the grains? Ron Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 10, 2005 Report Share Posted January 10, 2005 >After reading many of the posts on kefiring fruit juices I thought I would >be adventurous and juiced 6 tangerines, added 1/4 cup Rapadura, 1 teaspoon >sea salt and filled the remainder of a half gallon jug with water. I thawed >out some kefir grains that I had been keeping and plopped them into the mix. >It's been three days and I think they are dead. Nothing is happening -- no >fizz is developing. The odor is not changing and the grains look to be >shrinking. > >Any ideas? Is citrus to acidic for the grains? > >Ron The first batch takes longer in general, because the yeasts get crowded out by the lactobacilli. In later batches, with the dregs, they go faster. However, I haven't had much luck with citrus. Citrus oils have all kinds of stuff in them, antibacterial and all that. I also had the grains die in one batch of grape juice, which might have been due to fumigants or something on the grapes. For starting out, apple juice seems to be the safest and most predictable. Heidi Jean Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 10, 2005 Report Share Posted January 10, 2005 Were these frozen grains of the milk variety or the water variety? If they were milk grains it might have best reviving them by making several batches of milk kefir before plopping them in a nondairy liquid/juice. Freezing and drying and lack of food (milk lactose) stresses the microorganisms, and although it doesn't kill them, it weakens them somewhat. I'm surprised though that the yeast didn't become active in the sweet juice. Did you juice the peels also? Seems like citrus oils would be antimicrobial to a degree. The freezing and then putting in nondairy media might have been a doublepunch to the milk grains. Darrell Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 10, 2005 Report Share Posted January 10, 2005 Hi Darrell, They were frozen after growing in goats milk. I understand what you are saying below and am going to just let things continue to percolate and see what happens. It doesn't smell rotten, yet, so maybe things are happening slowly. I've never done any kind of citrus before so I don't know what to expect. I've done quite a bit of coconut water kefir from store bought culture and whey plus I regularly make Sally's ginger ale recipe from NT so I kind of have an idea as to what I should be looking for. There were no peels -- in fact the juice was done very gently in a hand citrus squeezer. I have some other frozen kefir grains that I'll make sure to bring back to life in milk for a few rounds before trying anything else. Thanks also to Heidi for the response. I'll let you know how it turns out. Ron > Were these frozen grains of the milk variety or the water variety? > > If they were milk grains it might have best reviving them by making > several batches of milk kefir before plopping them in a nondairy > liquid/juice. Freezing and drying and lack of food (milk lactose) > stresses the microorganisms, and although it doesn't kill them, it > weakens them somewhat. I'm surprised though that the yeast > didn't become active in the sweet juice. Did you juice the peels > also? Seems like citrus oils would be antimicrobial to a degree. > > The freezing and then putting in nondairy media might have been > a doublepunch to the milk grains. > > Darrell > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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