 A few months ago I made a video on water kefir and how it has been the most dramatic single thing I have done to improve my gut health. Some of you guys have been asking how I cleared up my acne, why my skin is looking better. This water kefir is the sole reason for that. Instead of having candida, leaky gut, dysbiosis, overgrowth, the probiotic beneficial bacteria and yeast in this drink prevented that from happening. So you should definitely check out that first video on water kefir how to make it because today we're focusing on the second fermentation. And that initial fermentation is with water kefir grains, sugar, and water. Grains in kefir are akin to yeast or sourdough in bread baking, the initial starter culture. To some people that initial water kefir fermentation is a lot of work waiting two, three days just for it to be ready is definitely not what the average person is used to whether it's the microwave, a quick pan sear of a steak. In that water kefir you have B vitamins and minerals that are all created from the sugar and molasses which the kefir grains are eating. So you have the bacteria in there nom nom nom nom nom eating eating the molasses and the sugar nom nom and turning it into themselves more bacteria. So the kefir grains eat the sugar nom nom and then they release the bacteria which then is in the liquid. In that second fermentation we're doing two things making it more enjoyable, improving the taste, flavor, adding carbonation, and two increasing the nutrition of the kefir itself. Certain B vitamins get higher, minerals become more bioavailable. Both kefir and second ferment kefir are raw foods and both incredibly nutritious and good for you. It's akin to eating raw meat, drinking raw milk, as they are live bacteria. And when I'm drinking one, two liters, more than a half gallon of kefir per day, some of you guys are asking me, Frank, why do you only cook food now that the raw kefir that I'm drinking is my raw food in my diet? So I'm going to show you guys how to do a legitimate second ferment kefir and then I'm going to show you my ghetto second ferment. So here I have the first kefir and I'm feeding this every single day. So this is where I get my first kefir from and the ratio that the recipe states is 4 ounces of kefir grains, 4 ounces of sugar, and 64 ounces of water, which is half a gallon. This is probably four times more potent than that. So that would be one cup of kefir grains, one cup of sugar, maybe a tablespoon of molasses. I forgot to say there's a tablespoon of molasses in that first recipe. And then the 64 ounces of water. So this is a four times potent water kefir initial, which means the bacteria content is much, much higher. There's more lactobacillus. There's more probiotics in it. And there is too much. If the bacteria or the sugar concentration gets too high, it stops growing. So you have to drain out the kefir, consume it, add fresh water, add fresh resources for those kefir grains. My ghetto fermentation, which is just me being kind of lazy, is when you do a second fermentation, you take the kefir out, you add flavorings to it, you add more sugar. But normally in that second fermentation, you remove the kefir grains. So the bacteria that the grains produced can just replicate. But since I have some grains still in here, two things are happening. The bacteria that the initial grains produced are growing and the kefir grains in here are producing more bacteria. So it's kind of like a mix of initial and second ferment kefir. I like this because I don't have to wait two or three days. I take the first kefir out of here, I put it in here, I add some sugar, some flavorings. It's ready in 12 hours the next day. It's much, much faster, whereas a legitimate second kefir ferment is going to take one and a half, two days if it's really warm, possibly longer, which is why I have the heating pad under this towel. And you do want to be mindful that it's a low EMF heating pad because if it's not, it might actually kill it as it's a live culture. But by keeping this at like 100 degrees, 97 degrees, it's replicating as quickly as possible. It's fermenting as quickly as possible. So an electric blanket is a great way in the colder times of the year to keep this growing very quickly. So I use two types of water. Sometimes I want to hire calcium and mineral content. So I'll use the Garro Steiner, which is actually so high in calcium that I do get concentrated. And if I want to switch it up, I go with the Mountain Valley Spring. Still kind of high in minerals, but substantially lower calcium than the Garro Steiner. For the flavorings, we're going to do two types of second ferment kefir today. One's going to be lemon lime, and the other is going to be apple pineapple. Normally I do lemon lime ginger with a lot of ginger, which I really like, but it's very hard to find organic ginger. I have a restaurant supplier that I get it from pretty easily, but I didn't see it in the supermarket so I figured I wouldn't show it to you guys. So maybe when Frankie has his farm and doesn't lose his mind in the future, I'll be selling this to you guys. In the meantime, let's make it. So I have a strainer in here so the kefir grains don't go in the nozzle and clog this up. And you don't want to fill this up all the way because it's going to be a little too strong and the bacteria might become oversaturated. So we want to add a little bit of fresh water. So for the ghetto fermentation, I'm just topping these off. So what's in here now is actually the finished second ferment from the previous day. So we're just adding more fresh kefir to it. So in the front here, we have our water kefir in the back. We have our ghetto water kefir. And some of you that have made water kefir before are thinking, oh, this is so dark. Frank, what are you doing? As I said, very, very high bacterial content, very concentrated. That's how I've been drinking it lately. So on the right, we have a bunch of organic fruit, citrus, one lemon, one lime that we're going to put in this one. We have some apples and pineapple that we're going to put in this one. And you want to really cut the fruit, give it more surface area because that's what's going to give this a lot of flavor. And I'll put some of this in the ghetto fermentation as well. I'll save the rest for tomorrow. Now to all of these, we need to add sugar for the bacteria to eat. So we want about four ounces, roughly five tablespoons. Now if you want this to be ready, you're in a rush really quick, you can put less sugar and the bacteria will eat that sugar and it'll be ready sooner. But to do this legitimately to feed all of the bacteria, you do need about the same amount of sugar that you would add for a normal kefir fermentation. And now you want to be careful because if you top this off with carbonated water, it tends to react to the sugar and fizz up like this. So just add it slowly, so you add some sugar, top them off with mineral water and you're good to go. This is going to take maybe two or three days. And you want to be a little careful because if you let these go for like a week or two they will explode because it builds up gas and carbonation. So if you're worried about that, just let a little bit of air out. So once this does finish fermenting at the two or three day point, then you can put it in the fridge and the bacteria should be good for up to a week. So you don't have to drink this all at once or keep making huge batches of it. For the ghetto kefir, I'm going to put two tablespoons in the one that I'm going to have earlier in the day, three tablespoons in the one I'm eating later in the day because it's going to be active for longer until I drink it. As I've said several times, two to three days at room temperature, 48 to 72 hours. And not only does this have higher B vitamins and more bioavailable minerals than regular kefir, the strains of bacteria become more variant, more beneficial. And this applies to dairy kefir too. I should have said that at the beginning, but this second fermentation thing you can also do with dairy kefir, same exact thing. If you want to use juices, this is really delicious, really enjoyable. If you do like half kefir, half juice, let it do a second fermentation, amazing. But you have to use raw juice, so you basically have to make your own. The pasteurized juices from the store actually kill the bacteria. It's what I've experienced. It's what I've heard people say. And you could do a normal concentration as well. You know, I should have probably done a quarter of that with like three quarters of water because of how strong I made that. So for all of you guys that have purchased my kefir grains on Frankie's Free Range Foods, let me know how it's working out. And if you guys do want to order them again, I think I can keep up with the demand. Last time it was a little crazy, but these are my personal kefir grains, highest quality I know available. I only use mineral water. Everything is kept in glass as high quality as possible. Frankie'sFreeRangeFoods.com. So please drop a like on the video, leave a comment down below, subscribe so that YouTube can unsubscribe you next week, and check that notification bell so they don't notify you of my videos. Let me know how you guys like this. And maybe we'll do the sourdough pizza next week, no promises.