Table of Contents

Inspiration #

First, I would like to thank TheBruShow To inspire me trying this out, Please take a watch if this sounds interesting to you

Introduction #

What is Water Keifer anyways? #

In short, it’s a fermenting product. Meaning a bacteria/yeast that will consume sugar, then produce CO2 and good ol’ alchohol (but in insignificant amounts in this case).

Water Keifer is a specific combination of the bacteria and yeast. When given sugar water (or something akin to fruit juice). You end up with a somewhat yeasty tasting liquid that does not have the acidity that most would expect from a similar product called Kombucha. However, the fun comes with putting them into sealed bottles that can hold pressure, like those Kombucha bottles some of us may or may not have been collecting. You end up with a semi-sweet drink that is as fizzy as soda from a can.

Strong start #

I grabbed the dehydrated grains from the same place TheBruShow grabbed his. I attempted to rehydrate it, but was having issues with the actual fermentation until I used some rasins and raw cane sugar about 4 days later. The first actually fermented batches worked flawlessly, tasted great and has a roundtrip time of hours, instead of a week with my normal kombucha. I would leave the bottles on the table overnight, and they would fizz to cannon level pressures by morning. Time to start playing with special juices…

Sickening Halt #

Things started to go wrong with my attempt for a strange juice with Strawberry Banana Orange. I was already skeptical as it was not my first choice… but figured it would be worth a shot.

I mixed my grains with the sketch juice and raisins to keep the fast fermentation going. Little did I know something bad was going to start happening. The next day, there was a layer of dense foam on the top, not like a carbonation fizz, I decided to bottle it anyways, and prep the second batch with a juice combo I like with no rasins. I tested my sketch juice the next day, It tasted bad. I considered the banana to be the culprit and tossed my bottles, waiting for my current batch in the next 2 days.

The day after, on 2023-07-25. I tasted the new batch, my mouth was overtaken by what I could only describe as rot. It took every ounce of willpower to not hurl on the floor after spitting it out on the sink.

After gathering my senses (and my stomach). I realized it was the same taste as the sketch juice x100, but none of those ingredients were present in this batch.

I’ve tossed my grains for now. I plan to grab a new set soon. I’ll be attempting to do a more pure set of grains. But I may just been unlucky.

Final thoughts #

I had fun, not the first time I made something rotten. (Some day I’ll write about the fuzzy pickle incident.) But I would still recommend giving Water Keifer a try, do not try to use stupid juices like I did. Stick to typical fruits.

Water Keifer: What went wrong?