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Viva el vivo no el vitro!
The kefir grains are a polysacc right? Any prob in eating them?

Zark/Ted,

I strongly believe that probiotics help as well. Still taking an enteric coated probiotic and now eating yogurt with live cultures. Have noticed quite an improvement in last 2 weeks. Better sleep, back only stiff if I forget my stretching.

Only issue is my right hip yet... but believe this is in part due to bad basketball injury in my early 20's and not just AS itself. But I have noticed improvement in my right hip as well.

Take care,

Tim

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional

Kefir is a matrix of polysacch carrying the active yeasts and bacteria, the only problem of eating them is having enough.

Ted

Why How What?!

Why? : I think the problem is that keffir takes time to ferment. So you would need a little production line going in order to have enough for each day. Also, it takes time for the culture "grains" to grow.. so you start out only being able to make one batch at a time.

I really should find someone in sydney who is willing to share a grain.

cheers,
z

"So long and thanks for all the fish" - Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy

Hi Zark
What's 24 hours? and if you're fermenting enough for a mugful a day for one person..the grains grow at a rate suitable to pass on some, about twice weekly in my experience.
Also I got my grains in dried form from Dom in..wherever he lives in Oz... they survived the journey to the UK no prob.
Best
Sue

Sounds like an active strain Sue to reproduce so much, i'll try some of Dom's (he lives in the hills outside Adelaide) as mine are not increasing at all. I leave it at room temp for 24 hours then in the fridge for a week, makes nice kefir.
The adaptability of kefir to new media is excellent as some of the bacteria and yeasts will perform better, some worse when dairy is exchanged for honey and water or coconut milk etc.
If i continue to boil and rinse rice, i will try a culture on the amylose juice. The bacteria and yeast enzymes will then have a week or more to break down the big carbos to kefirin. The idea is to throw away the first few batches until the kefir complex finds its feet and adapts. If it works, i'll be adding other nutrients - like bananas.......
Like the idea of turning the poison itself into food or medicine

Ted

Interesting Ted,
Talking about turning poison into food or even medicine. I was thinking along the same lines myself. Last year I was in Istanbul and in one street close to the Suleyman mosc I saw almost all the people parking their cars and drinking some kind of thick yellowish drink covered with a little cinnamon. It made me very curious. A little further on the road there was a very nice shop completely dedicated to selling the stuff that appeared to be called Boza. I bought a glass to taste (without the iodine test I always live dangerously on vacation) and it was quite nice, a bit tingly sour like yoghurt but also a bit like vanilla porridge. Actually it was so good that I decided to take one of the big attractive two liter glass bottles that were lined along the counter. I shared the bottle with the others but drank quite a lot of it without harmful effects.

As I'm planning a new trip to Istanbul this winter I was surfing recently and I found this text from Jack Campin that was posted in rec.food.histories and alt.support.food-allergies:

"Boza is a traditional winter beverage high
in fiber and quite nourishing. It has a sweet and sour taste and somewhat
thick and smooth texture that is unique and simply delicious. Boza
requires simple ingredients and only a few hours of your labor. But, the
end product is quite satisfying and worth the effort. Here it is.

My Mom's Boza Recipe
====================

1 lb bulgur (usually found in health stores, supermarkets)
1/4 lb plain white rice
1 1/4 lbs sugar
1 egg size bread yeast (dough like yeast found in pastry shops and some
supermarkets not the powder stuff in little
packages. This ingredient is the most crucial
one since it starts the fermentation and turns
the substance into boza. You will not need
the bread yeast in your next batch of boza
if you freeze 1 cup of boza from your first
batch and use that as your fermenter.

Boil bulgur in plenty of water in a large container. Add water as
needed until bulgurs absorb the maximum amount of water and become
fat and happy and very soft. Do the same thing for the rice in a
separate container. Drain bulgur and rice after they cool down a
bit. Add rice to bulgur and mix them preferably with a large
wooden spoon. Get another large container and a colander with
smallest straining holes available. The smaller the holes, the
creamer the boza will become. Now, with the same wooden spoon,
scoop up some bulgur/rice mixture into the colander and press them
through by forcing them with the bottom of the spoon. Let the
filtered mixture to accumulate in the new container as you continue
your pressing and filtering process. Dispose the part of the mixture
that would not go through the colander everytime you are ready to
scoop up more. This is a laborious process and may take up some
time. I hesitate to recommend food processors or blenders to do
this job, because I don't know what the results are going to be.
After pressing and filtering of all the mixture of bulgur and rice,
add sugar and bring it to boil for three minutes stirring occasionally
to prevent thick skin from forming on top. Continue to stir until
the mixture is warm. In a small cup, dissolve the bread yeast with
1/2 cup of luke warm water and add it to the mixture and stir it
thoroughly. At this time it should look and feel like thick creamy
soup. Cover the container and wrap it with a Turkish towel or any
other towel and place it in an area where the temperature is 90-100
degrees at all times: an oven for instance. The fermentation process
usually takes 24 to 48 hours. At the end of first day, remove the
cover and see if the mixture has somewhat risen. With a spoon, taste
it. It should be turning slightly sour. This is where you make a
decision depending on your taste buds. How sour do I want it? The
longer it is fermented, the more sour it is going to be. Once you
make your decision, the boza is ready to tingle your taste buds for
a long time. Pour it into bottle containers and store them in the
frig. I like it cold. Pour yourself a tall glass of cold thick
delicious boza and top it with your favored unsalted nuts and cinnamon
powder. Aman, aman, ne guzel.

There is a bar in Istanbul that sells boza both by the glass and in bulk:
the Vefa Bozacisi near the Aqueduct of Valens. It's a seasonal enterprise:
they sell vinegar all year round, shira (lightly fermented grape juice) in
summer and boza in winter. It has the same quiet atmosphere as an Irish
pub, quite a relief from the frenzy of the surrounding city."

Other info said the above shop was more the 200 years old and the drank itself was a lot older in the middle east. Bulgur by the way is a form of wheat that is first soaken and then dried. Anyway I was planning to try to make it and to test how safe it is, which is probably depending on the time it is allowed to ferment. But then I saw your post and couldn't resist to reply.
Gerard.




"That we become twice as old now as a century ago is the work of plumbers, not doctors" -Midas Dekkers-

Hi Ted.... active..maybe..but this is normal. Did you get a commercial variety...that would not be normal.
Re gerard's post below..interesting...kefir also originates in caucasus region...seems the Turks know how to turn poisons into food as you say...as an art form.

I hope that can be said of the Bulgher wheat Gerard...re the starch.
But isn't this exactly what we're supposed to do with all plant material... ie plant material has its ways to stop itself being eaten... and we need to allow it to germinate, sprout, ferment or some other way before its ready for us.
(Maybe even the by products of animals too..so fermented milk, blood etc!)

This is what gets me when you hear folk going on about the hazards of meat eating...we just assume that because something is a so called edible plant that's it alright.. you could almost look at it in terms of stages of readiness at the molecular level... from seed surrounded by environment of a healthy soil.. to growing plant with its armoury...to plant that's germinated ensuring its own continuance and leaving the leftovers for animals... to animal flesh that grows and 'ripens' in readiness for us at the top of the food chain. Therefore by such a 'whacky' argument meat is more ready for us than plant food.

Enough!
Sue

Thankyou thankyou Gerard, exactly what i was hoping for - i'd heard that milk was not the only ferment stock around Turkey, but knew no more. Kefir has been around so long (a gift from Allah) i'd be surprised if it wasn't used in this type of media somewhere close by.
The soaking and drying of Bulgur is critical in changing the chemical constituents and as you may recall from my Sailing Food post, i've been waiting to research this area for some time. Very interesting to combine rice with wheat, wonder what variety of rice.
Some manual pressing, crushing machine may be useful for the processing, but as you say the blender may be an unknown quantity - especially with all the extra aeration. Still it saves enough labour to make it worth while exploring.

quick search
In 1876 Haci Salih Bey established a boza shop in the Istanbul district of Vefa, close to the then centre of entertainment, Direklerarasý. This boza, with its thick consistency and tart flavour, became famous throughout the city, and is the only boza shop dating from that period still in business today. The firm is now run by Haci Salih Bey's great- great-grandchildren. Vefa boza, as it is known, is made only from hulled millet, which is boiled in water and then poured into broad shallow pans. When cool the mixture is sieved, and water and sugar added.
A small quantity of mature boza is then stirred into each batch, and the mixture left to ferment. When small bubbles appear, the boza is ready.
Boza is produced in most Turkic regions, but not always using millet. The flavour various according to the cereal which is used. In Kirghizia, for instance, boza is made with crushed wheat, in the Crimea with wheat flour, and in Turkmenistan with coarsely ground rice meal. In a scientific study of boza carried out by the Turkish Science and Technology Institute for Vefa Bozacisi, the drink was found to be extremely healthy and nourishing. One litre of boza contains a thousand calories, four types of vitamins A and B, and vitamin E. During fermentation lactic acid, which is contained by few foods, is formed, and this facilitates digestion.
In the past boza was drunk in crystal glasses with silver mounts, and sprinkled with ginger, but today it is customary to use cinnamon instead, and to serve boza with roasted chickpeas.

All we need is total phytonutrient so we know what's in it and what's not, but
It did pass your litmus test of actually eating it....
one more for the Ferment farm
bon appetit

Ted