Water kefir the first
Eureka, my first water kefir is ready for tasting. This recipe consisted of: sugar, raisins, water and a water kefir culture. And some lemon juice. I bottled the kefir after fermenting for two days and left it outdoors to keep it cool (it is winter in Switzerland).
Aroma: Smells sweet and some notes of raisins. No sourness detectable.
Appearance: Straw yellow, hazy and some bubbles. No head. Some particles are floating in the liquid.
Flavor: First notes are raisins, some sweetness and a very light hint of sourness. Pretty dry aftertaste. Nice prickling on the palate.
Mouthfeel: Light body and some carbonation. Sweet aftertaste. A real thirst quencher.
Overall impression: This kefir reminds me of a champagne made with raisins. It has Cider notes as well but no apple character. To summarize: it tastes very subtle, only the raisins get through and are very easy to detect.The appearance, well, looks kind of a very cold white wine. The sour sensation might come from the light carbonation of the kefir itself or from the lemon juice.
So, this was my first kefir. I am very fascinated about the character it has. But I would love to get it more sour. I guess two days are not enough to get it sour. The pamphlet, which came with the kefir culture, suggests two days of fermentation to get the best results flavor-wise. I will let it ferment for maybe four days next time and look what happens.
This was a very cool experiment. I already made my second batch with dried apricots instead of raisins. And I will let it ferment for four days instead of two. I might post the tasting notes of the second batch but since this page is not really about kefir… I might leave it with this post about kefir. But I definitely will do further experiments with my kefir bugs. And I will do a Berliner Weisse some times with the kefir culture or at least with some of the bugs from the kefir.
Eureka Brewing 
That is so cool. I want to try this stuff. So it has probiotics in it? what are the cultures latching on to?
Hi there,
Yes, there are some bacteria and yeasts in the kefir. But I can’t tell if they are probiotic. I made several kefirs so far and letting it sit for four days made it a bit more sour. And I also added dried apricots once but had some stomach troubles afterwards 🙂 But I get that as well when I eat a lot of dried apricots… I can’t tell why I added them anyway. But the raisins lead to a very pleasant kefir. I will add some figs or dates next time.
And about your last question, I could not find any translation for “latching on to” which made sense for your question… It seems to be an idiom I do not know. Did you mean latching onto? Sorry for that. Please let me know when you brewed your first kefir.
Cheers
Samuel