Yemoos Nourishing Cultures Forum

Greetings,
I love the playfulness of your website and I was impressed with the protective sealed bubble packaging of the live grains. I ordered two packs of sugar to start grains off with food they were familiar, used Zephyr springs water and had great results of grains doubling each ferment.

Do you have any knowledge of using Berkey water? I have a Berkey water filter and company literature reports it leaves minerals in the water. But since I switched over to Berkey water the grains are no longer doubling. I am using 1/4 cup sugar to 1/4 cup grains for quart jar. Sugar mix is white cane, brown and palm.

Or it could be a temperature challenge as I live in the Florida Keys. I tried a ferment in fridge but nothing happened in three days. I tried a cooler with ice pack but that was messy as pack thawed. I normally don't use my air conditioner but have set the ferment jars in front of AC set on 84 degrees. (Some people leave their AC on for their pets, I'm leaving mine on for my grains!?) I'm getting varying success with AC. Some batches get weird float things on top, grains float and bubbles rise. Plus I prefer to have windows open and fans on than running AC so much. Any other suggestions for keeping grains cool?

Funny enough, I've tried the Berkey water filter system and the grains did not like it. It felt like they were slowly dying. I don't know why. You would think the grains would do well with it. Maybe switching back may help. I think the grains originated from mexico so they usually do okay in the heat. If you don't like the cooler, maybe try a bowl or sink of cool water.

And I thought that this article would help you a lot. https://theberkey.com/blogs/water-filte ... -all-about

I use a Berkey Water Filter, and my grains have not been multiplying, yet ferment fine, however, recently due to the weather change from winter to Spring, it has turned very syrupy, like consistency of an egg white, which from what they say, is to much on the mineral side, so if the Berkey Filter takes out the minerals, where is my water getting too many minerals? I use Turbinado sugar throughout the winter with no issues, and have just recently switched to 1/4 cup white sugar to 1/4 cup turbinado, and still getting "Egg White" water. Temp where the jars are stored has gone from 69 to 74 due to warming up for the spring. I use a glass gallon jar, with 2 qts water, and a 2 at jar full, and both seem to work equally. 1/2 cup sugar to both, and about 4-5 tbs grains per jar.

I have yet to find any water that doesn't either use Chlorine, or Ozone in their filtration, including Bottled water.
Last year my wife was keeping track of the grains, and they were multiplying like gang busters, but since I've done it, doing it the same way she did it, they won't multiply for me at all. Maybe they just don't like me.

Most manufactured homes have the incoming water connection under the water heater. It seems that some plumbing modifications could be designed to create a place for the filter to be installed within the home. Your question would best be answered by the manufacturer of the filter system.