How to make Kefir Wey and how to use it.

Kefir is considered to be 99% lactose free. Lactose is the milk sugar and is what the living bacteria in the Kefir is eating. That's why you can't use lactose free milk, that will starve the Kefir grains (they turn brown and eventually dies). So when you drink Kefir, since the sugars is eaten, you don't get as many calories as if you'd drink the milk unfermented. 

Kefir Wey contains a lot of vitamins, such as B- and C vitamins, and especially B2 wich is good for your eyes, and also helps your body to convert carbs into energy. 

Kefir Wey helps to remove toxins and supports the white bloodcells, it stabilize colesterol levels. 

It has very powerful anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial properties and has been even frequently been recommended to patients by Hippocrates to heal them from a variety of illnesses 

-you know the guy that is supposedly have said: 

Further on; Kefir Wey also contains a lot of potassium witch helps muscels to contract and supports normal blood pressure. Potassium also helps to maintain normal levels of fluid inside the cells and supports the kidneys.

So: why not a splash of  Kefir Wey in your smoothie to enrich both the vitamin and probiotic content. Sealed in a glass bottle and stored in the fridge, your Kefir Wey will be fine at least a couple of weeks, I'd say up to a month, but it will have the most probiotics in it the very first days.

And lol, listen to this; Kefir Wey can even be used in a skin toner to remove any remnants of cleaning, dirt, excess oil or makeup, balance the skin's PH and moisturize. (Find recipe below)

So Here's how you make Kefir Wey:

Do your usual procedure of straining your grains. Then strain your Kefir through a coffee filter. You can let it drip in the fridge over night. The liquid is even called Liquid Gold due to it's high healing properties!

This "liquid gold" can be used as a starter when you ferment veggies. If you're used to supplement with probiotics in capsule or pill form, consider that Kefir contains 35-56 different strains of probiotics. The highest amount of different strains I have found in capsules is 25 different strains, and when I tried to sprinkle that over a batch of blueberries to be fermented - nothing happened, the berries didn't ferment at all! Another brand that I tried that with, with 14 strands of probiotics worked though, and the fermentation got going perfectly! Compare that with 35-56 different strands, and that isn't freeze dried (and might be killed by you stomach acid...), living bacteria is Much stronger! Adding Kefir Wey over your veggies (I'd use about 1-2 table spoons in the brine) to be fermented is of course to cultivating those strains in your batch. Use as fresh Kefir Wey as possible, preferably directly when you've filtered the Wey.

But of course you can drink your Liquid Gold directly out of the stored bottle too!

The Kefir "left-over" that you have in your coffee filter is called Kefir Cheese and can be use as such. Cut some nice fresh herbs, or add some salt and garlic, there's endless of options to blend in your Kefir Cheese! Use it as a spread or as a tasty (and very healthy) spice on your fish, chicken, meat or salad! I think my favourite Kefir Cheese must be with finely crushed fresh rosemary and some salt!

Best of Luck!!

Source: https://youtu.be/IOZL1UrL5ns?si=aFGfV5YeAFfzpBaN

Kefir Whey Facial Toner, Recipe: https://www.culturedfoodlife.com/recipe/kefir-whey-facial-toner/

Lingonberry jam - Fermentation style

As you may know, all plants have so called antinutrients in various grades.

Antinutrients can mess up your microbiome if you don't have a strong bacteria flora in your gut. If you're really unlucky several illnesses can get into your system. The GOOD BACTERIA even educate our immune system, I mean how amazing is that! Our bodies is so fascinating to learn about! I've started to ferment almoust all veggies that I eat, and now during the berry season, I thought I'd share this:

How to make Lingonberry jam even more nutrient dence!

I ferment frozen blueberries all year around. Simply pour the frozen berries in a jar and add some living bacteria. It can be from a probiotic capsule or even a pill that can melt. I use these (and you don't to use a whole capsule, just open it and sprinkle about a fifth of it over the berries): 

Some probiotics (like Swanson) don't work, so test, if not bubbly after 5 days in room temp, they probably won't work in your stomach either. Just add living bacteria over or under frozen berries 😊

You can also use wey from KEFIR, or LACTO.

Seal the jar tightly so no air gets in. A rubber ring will release air if the carbonation process get intense. 

It's  a very good "insurance" to have a rubber ring both on jars and on bottles when you're fermenting! In the first stage of the growing process the probiotics are going through, is that they're creating carbonic acid, and it can actually expand so strongly that it can make the glass expload. Well don't worry, it takes quite a lot to make that happen! And the rubber ring is weaker than glass, so it's the rubber ring that will give way for the pressure.

Once I had forgotten about a glass bottle with a metal screw-cap with Kombucha in the cupboard for far too many weeks, a bottle that I, on top of everything, had added sugar to, to make more fizz. And one evening while having a nice cup of tea with my daughter, we heard a muffled "boom" in the cupboard. I immediately remembered the kefir bottle and realized what had happened. Yeah, I understood I had some cleaning work ahead of me 😅.

So befriend this process and have a dish under your jar and let the carbonation bubble out past the rubber ring. The more sugar there is in your berries, the more "chaotic" will the carbonation process be.

And the less air there is in the jar, the less risk it is for the bad critters to take over (such as mould and putrefactation), so you can't get away with only fill your jar half full. But of course the more carbonation, the more good bacteria is there! 

Bacteria likes an environment of tartness, so that is what they create. Learn how tart you prefere your beverages to be, and don't hesitate to experiment! Berries that is a bit tart to start with, can take a bit longer, since the bacteria eat the sugars. So much sweetness - fast fermentation, less sweetnes - slower fermentation. That goes for your room temperature too: the warmer where the jar is - the faster fermentation

!

When I open a jar I use to take some of the berries and prepare a new jar. Instead of using prebiotics as I mentioned above, you can use the living bacteria that now has developed in your jar. Add a spoonful of your fermented berries to a jar filled with fresh berries. Close the lid and write the date on it and place it to in roomtemperature to ferment. I use to let it set on the counter for 5 days, then I place the jar in the fridge. As soon as you open a jar with readily fermented berries, air will come in with contaminating spores and bad bacteria living in oxygen, so take them as fresh as you can, for the new jar.

 

To thicken the jam you can use gelatin.

This time, for my lingonberry jam, I tried a few leaves of stevia from my garden. I thought that I'd add them to be fermented as well and hopefully give some nice sweetness to my lingonberries. An wow, it turned out fantastic! 

I loved the taste!! And since then I've started to add more herbs to both berries and my Kefir making! I'll give you updates on that too. I never use sugar any more, but here and there I can add some honey. Honey is of course also loaded with good bacteria, a true divine gift from the amazing honey bees! But reading about stevia made me think that, not only could it balance out very tart berry fermentations, but I also found very interesting info about stevia being good for your health as well! 

https://youtu.be/pGl2CDWHvzA?si=INnibljiFbFKriiT

Don't take my word for it though, always investigate to make your own decisions in what to believe! 

I'm here to inspire!

Here's some nerd info for you 😊

Lingonberry's name in latin is Vaccinum vitis-idea. Vaccinum was a name used in old latin and means "plant". Lingonberries, like other berries, are high in potassium relative to sodium, wich can be helpful to stabilize blood pressure. Of course there's vitamin C (10,7mg/100g), vitamine E (1,7mg/100G) Source Fineli

The phenols, phenolic acids in lingonberries is antioxidants and its ellagic acids are traditionally known for its skin properties, anti inflammation- and brain boosting properties, and not only that folks, they are also good for the intestinal bacterial strain. Lingonberries contain several implortant fatty acids that are difficult to absorb from the rest of the daily diet.

And of course, if you can pick them yourself in a clean forrest, the very walk in the forrest gives you health properties that goes far beyond what can be squeezed down in this little blog!

But you probably knew that already!

Sourses:

https://foodinsight.org/everything-you-need-to-know-about-stevia-sweeteners/
https://youtube.com/shorts/8fygn2nb5EE?feature=share

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/ellagic-acid#how-it-works