Yemoos Nourishing Cultures Forum

I got some grains from a neighbor and am attempting to make water kefir. My first batch turned out great — I did a second ferment and it turned out nice and fizzy. I did two jars for the second batch and one of the jars developed a thin white film on the top. There are also a few large bubbles there all the time, not just if it gets disturbed (not the small kind that come from fizz). It smells fine and when I swirled the jar, everything looked normal, though it did settle back into the center of the jar after a while. I did some research and determined that this can be a sign that the grains need to be rehabilitated. I don’t need to salvage the grains as I have loads of them from the other jar, but I’m wondering what might have gone wrong.

I’m using a mix of sucanat and a white dried sugar cane sugar, with Berkey filtered water (which has alkalizing rocks in it). The grains from my first round multiplied like crazy — from about 2 tablespoons to over 1 cup. We have very hard water, with loads of minerals -- Berkey filters apparently don't remove minerals. I've read somewhere that some people have trouble with Berkey water, but I don't want to use our tap water, as it seems to be quite impure (if I water our plants with it, they get musty no matter what I do, and if I wipe the table with it, it starts to smell really odd). Coulc it just be the Berkey water?

I tried again with the grains from the jar that looked good and now the film grew on those jars too. In one jar I used just sucanat, and that one looks much more filmy, with some large bubbles. In the other jar, I used half sucanat and half white evaporated cane juice. That one doesn't have so much of a film all over it, but what looks like the same filmy stuff has left a thick ring around the edge of jar, where the top of the liquid meets the jar. This second round I put in the oven with the door partly open, with the oven light on, because we live in a cold climate my house is getting cooler (64 degrees and a bit less at night and somewhere around 68 in the day).

I read the problem could be contamination, too high of a mineral content in the water (but that makes grains slimy and mine are not), overcrowding (but the jars in my first try had the same proportion of ingredients), or a lack of nutrients (but again, the jars were the same). I've been using about 2 TBSP of grains with 1/4 cup of sugar and 3 cups of water.

Is the batch with the white film okay to drink? It doesn’t look like mold …

Any ideas on what is going wrong? Or is this normal?

Honestly as long as its growing and does not smell or taste 'wrong' then its probably just fine. A white film can indicate yeast issues, but if its just a light film and everything else seems great, I wouldn't be too concerned. It's not that uncommon with water kefir and its much more common with ginger beer, even healthy ginger beer. You can try rinsing and resting them in the fridge for a couple or so days as that can help reset everything. Or try a side by side test with a different water and see what happens as that berkey water can sometimes do strange things I've heard.

Alex