Time to Celebrate!

Hurray! Thank you to everyone for following my Eco-Friendly Freckles blog and spreading the word to get me to 100 followers! I really appreciate all of your support.

To celebrate reaching 100 followers, I am sharing a recipe on how to make a home-brewed, fermented red wine spritzer using organic, probiotic kefir grains that I sell in my Etsy shop!

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=42030245

This refreshing and stimulating cocktail is slightly carbonated and "bubbly" and has a delicious taste...although, this recipe has many variations of flavor depending on the type of juice you choose to use. This time my husband, Joe, and I selected Old Orchard's 100% juice Blueberry Pomegranate with no added sugar, since the natural fruit juices themselves contain enough sugar for us and for the kefir grains to consume and convert into vitamins.

This is how you can easily transform the milk kefir grains I sale in my Etsy shop into kefir grains that you can use to make fermented herbal and fruit beverages, as well as the recipe for a no-alcohol red wine kefir fermented spritzer!



Red Wine Kefir Spritzer (a.k.a. "Kefir D'Uva")

1 large Mason jar with lid (any desirable size)
1 bottle of blueberry, pomegranate, acai, grape, cherry, aronia berry, raspberry, cranberry juice (single fruit juice or juice blends can be used in any desirable size)
Organic, Probiotic Milk Kefir Grains

Remove the milk kefir grains from the milk kefir and lightly rinse them off will cool water. It is okay if you rinse off the kefiran (nutritious slime) because much of the kefiran is from within the kefir grains and it will reproduce once it consumes more sugar. After lightly rinsing off the kefir grains, add them to a Mason jar (size of your choice) that is filled up ½ - 2/3 of the way full of juice. Now it is time to put on the lid…DO NOT SCREW THE LID ON TIGHT! Since a fermented kefir beverage is carbonated and bubbly, it will build up pressure over time and if there is no place for the pressure to escape then the glass Mason jar will explode…Joe and I have learned this lesson the hard way. So when you screw on the lid, screw it on loosely: not to tight, but also not too loose; just enough for some of the pressure to escape. Let the fermenting kefir juice sit on the counter for 1-2 days, depending on how fermented you would like the spritzer to be. I like to go 2 days, but if this is your first time, you might want to do a taste test after day one to see how you like it…the longer you ferment your beverage, the less sweet and more carbonated it will be. Also after you have made one batch of Kefir Spritzer, if you leave a little residual fermented kefir juice in the bottom of the Mason jar along with the kefir grains, the next batch of kefir spritzer that you make will ferment faster and can be ready to drink in one day!