I was looking for a recipe for ginger beer and learned that the "authentic" stuff uses a bacteria/yeast culture called ginger beer plant. Over the past few years I've cultured milk kefir, so the whole process sounded pretty familiar. I had learned about water kefir back in my milk kefir days but never thought to give it a try. I probably should have, since no matter which culture I used, I just couldn't warm up to the yeastiness of the milk kefir that was produced.

After reading several glowing descriptions of water kefir as very soda-like in taste and bubbliness, I decided to give it a go, especially when I found several recipes for ginger beer using kefir. I purchased a packet of dried crystals from eBay and am so excited that they arrived today! The seller kindly added instructions; 3/4 of a quart jar filled with non-chlorinated water (I boiled tap water and let it cool) and 1/3 cup organic sugar (I used Zulka, my favorite supermarket brand of the sweet stuff.) The instructions didn't specify whether or not to stir the mix, so I didn't and just poured the crystals into the water.

Boy, do these little buggers move fast! The photo below was taken right after I added the crystals to the unstirred water and sugar. After snapping the picture, I decided to give the jar a bit of a shake and replace the solid plastic lid I originally used with a coffee filter. About an hour later, the layer of crystals looked like they were covered with a thin cloudy later. Some of the crystals developed what looks like cloudy fleshy appendages. Within several hours, the majority of crystals looked fleshy. I'm just waiting for them to start rising and falling.
It's so exciting! The instructions said the first batch of kefir should be discarded, but from there on out it's drinkable. I can hardly wait!