Adventures in fermentation: Making cider vinegar, ginger beer, and kefir

Now then, while I am happily pootling away at the Forgotten Household Crafts project, I am very bad at sticking to only one thing at once. When I get inspired, it tends to take many forms - I blame my creative brain *shakes fist*

So,  alongside my reading of Mrs. Beeton and digging through various crafty books I had an urge to try going no-poo again and try making my own bathroom cleaning spray. Then I ran out of kimchi, realised it's Christmas next week, and went shopping at my favourite shop in the world where I found some kefir. Inspiration set in.

The magic word: live. My interpretation: breedable!

I realised that going no-poo meant I was very shortly going to run out of cider vinegar, so resolved to try making my own. I made some more kimchi, and while chopping up cabbages wondered if I could ferment ginger into ginger beer to have at Christmas (answer = yes). As for the kefir, I'd read about it, but never tried it - let alone made it.

Having detailed the process of making cider vinegar and ginger beer I  realised these are blog posts in themselves (more soon!), so for now, some teaser pictures...

Cider in the making...

Spontaneous fermentation of ginger smush... ginger beer here I come!

As for the kefir... well, that's currently just a jar containing some milk and a spoonful of kefir on my kitchen sideboard. We'll have to see if it turns into anything...