Nanobrewing: It's aliiiiiive!
Nov. 14th, 2008 11:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tcepsaFrom the first couple of transition batches, where I used molasses, the kefir grains got very dark brown. This batch, with the secret ingredient, is much lighter and doesn't really have nearly as much stain/dye for them to absorb. I'll get back to why this is relevant in a moment ^_^
I wanted to bring the batch with me to VA for the weekend, so I put them in the car and left them there all day. When I got back to the car they had all sunk to the bottom (I don't remember if I mentioned this last time, but it's a good sign if all/most of them are floating because it means they're doing the conversion from sugars to CO2 and the gas is making them float) so I was concerned that perhaps I had inadvertently killed them. However, I was pretty sure that getting a little chilly wouldn't do them any lasting harm, so I figured I would let them come back up to the upper 60's and see whether that helped.
It did. So I think it was either a combination of the densities changing when things got cold, or the grains going dormant-ish, or both. They are happily sitting on the counter now, and have even produced enough gas to build up a little bit of pressure inside the jar.
Not only that, but I noticed that some of them are developing little white bumps (kind of like when a potato eye starts to sprout), which means that not only are they not dead, they're actually growing! Given that many of the other accounts I saw of this sort of thing said that they didn't have much luck getting milk kefir to grow in water, this is incredibly encouraging ^_^
I wanted to bring the batch with me to VA for the weekend, so I put them in the car and left them there all day. When I got back to the car they had all sunk to the bottom (I don't remember if I mentioned this last time, but it's a good sign if all/most of them are floating because it means they're doing the conversion from sugars to CO2 and the gas is making them float) so I was concerned that perhaps I had inadvertently killed them. However, I was pretty sure that getting a little chilly wouldn't do them any lasting harm, so I figured I would let them come back up to the upper 60's and see whether that helped.
It did. So I think it was either a combination of the densities changing when things got cold, or the grains going dormant-ish, or both. They are happily sitting on the counter now, and have even produced enough gas to build up a little bit of pressure inside the jar.
Not only that, but I noticed that some of them are developing little white bumps (kind of like when a potato eye starts to sprout), which means that not only are they not dead, they're actually growing! Given that many of the other accounts I saw of this sort of thing said that they didn't have much luck getting milk kefir to grow in water, this is incredibly encouraging ^_^
