I am making water kefir and I cannot tell if it is working. How do I know if I am getting good fermentation?

When you make kefir with milk, you can easily tell that it has worked because the taste is acidic and the milk thickens slightly. When making water kefir, it is impossible to see if it has fermented as the water does not change in appearance at all. What does happen is that the culture eats the sugar and creates acid. This makes the pH drop. The best way to test water kefir is to test the pH of the sugar/water mixture and then after fermenting for a day, test the pH again. The pH will have dropped if it is working. You can do this by taste if you do not have any pH paper on hand. It can still taste sweat even after fermentation, but it will not be as sweet as the original sugar/water mixture, so you need to compare.

To compare the end result with the original sugar/water mixture or coconut water, for example, the best way is to keep a small sample of the original mixture aside in a jar. This only needs to be a small amount.

Possible problems with water kefir are:

• The use of water with chlorine, which can damage culture.
• The use of demineralised water, which can damage the culture  
• Use of a sugar alternative that the culture cannot eat.