Porter Style Dark Keifer Brew

Needed something heavy for the cold months.  Stumbled online to an article about "Porter Keifer".  So i decided to give it a try with some added variations.

Porter Style #1

I have a friend at work who grows his own hops.  Lots of articles talked about the benefit of hops in brewing.  Talked about slowing down bacteria eating sugar, adding aromas and even taste. So i decided to try hops myself.  I have always stayed away from hops, never really liked them, but I think it was more I never understood them.

Recipe:
4 grams hops
1/2 cup molasses
2 quarts water
1.5 cups sugar

1) Put all this in a pot and boiled for about 20 minutes.  Then let it cool quickly

2) Added  strained keifer, 1 quart

3) Measured potential sugar to 5%

Started fermentation on 12/10/2015 and stopped 12/29/2015.

4) Added tsp sugar to all bottles and filled.

Flavor profile was heavily molasses.  Not bad, but not good.  Definitely needs some iterations.  The drink started out strong like a portere but finished like molasses.  Needs another flavor profile to kick in just after the molasses picks up.

From lemon and mint experiments to an Orange Juice success

I have been trying 1 quart variations for awhile.  Back in November of 2015 I bought myself a one gallon carboy from a local home brew store.  I am now setting out to document my recipes to start learning the art of keifer fermentation.

Simply Orange

8 cups of Strained keifer
4 cups simply OJ
4 cups water
1.5 cups regular sugar (white)

Going into the carboy ABV potential was 7%

I let this ferment maybe 3 weeks.  Since i really do not know what I was doing i was afraid to let fermentation stop outright so i bottle prematurely.

The way I bottle to be consistent is I added 1 tsp of sugar to each bottle and filled up.  I also added between 1/4 and 1/2 tsp of vanilla extract to some bottles for a nice variation in flavor.

Let the bottles sit for a week and began to enjoy.

The Fizzy OJ was a success.  Balanced flavor and the bottles with vanilla made for a nice Orange Creme.

About 2 years ago I started brewing water keifer for the probiotic effects.  It is a great way to water down juice and get some good health benefits.  Eventually i found a website that said I could make fizzy water by allowing keifer to ferment an additional day or too in an airtight bottle.  Bought a 1 quart grolsch bottle from Amazon and started making various fizzy drinks.  The funny thing is i would forget about the bottle and one and sometimes 2 weeks later i would remember about the bottle on top of my fridge.  Eventually I started to realize I was getting a buzz from these drinks.  Flash forward to today, I have evolved considerably, I now own a bunch of 16-oz grolsch bottles, several gallon carboys, a bunch of airlocks etc.

This journey came with ups and downs.  I was using cheep flip top bottles and one exploded in my cabinet resulting in hours of clean up.  There was the time I made vinegar and drank about half a quart before i realized it.

I really can not find any good material out there about fermenting keifer for alchololic drinks.  So I decided to start a blog to document my journey for other aspiring home brewers.