Kombucha, Kefir, and Beyond by Alex Lewin, Raquel Guajardo

Kombucha, Kefir, and Beyond by Alex Lewin, Raquel Guajardo ISBN-13: 9781592337385 Hardcover: 208 pages Publisher: Fair Winds Press Released: Sept. 1, 2017

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description, Modified from NetGalley:
Fermented foods help improve digestion, enable us to better assimilate vitamins and minerals, and strengthen the immune system. Of all fermented foods, drinks are some of the most versatile—and tasty! Think kombucha, kefir, and real ginger ale. Many of these items you can buy in the store, but making them at home is simple, economical, and even better for you. With just a few ingredients and materials, you can start brewing your own delicious beverages for your family.

Ferment Your Drinks is packed with innovative drink recipes, from healthy homemade sodas to traditional kvass and cider, that you can make in your home kitchen and enjoy all year long! Inside, you’ll learn:

--The history of fermentation and the value of traditional foods
--The benefits of fermented drinks to your health
--All the basics: the process, the tools, and how to get started
--How to use starters to make kombucha, kefir, root beer, wine, and others again and again
--Age-old recipes for kvass, switchel, vinegar, and mead
--Everything you need to know about why the recipes work, why they are safe, what to do if they go wrong, and how to modify them to suit your taste


My Review:
Kombucha, Kefir, and Beyond explains how to safely make your own fermented drinks. The authors talked about why you should drink fermented drinks, provided an evolutionary history of fermented drink consumption, gave a simplified version of the science of fermenting foods, and described the tools that you need or might like to have to make your own fermented drinks.

They provided about 24 recipes that use fermented foods--plus other ingredients--to make a drink. Most of these were in the fermented cocktails section. The rest of the recipes were how to ferment a food, some part of which can be used as or made into a drink. They started with 6 master recipes for making ginger bug, yogurt, milk kefir, whey, vinegar, and water kefir.

The next chapter was about tea fermentation (kombucha and jun). Next were 6 recipes for vegetable drinks using brine from fermented beets, cucumbers, or radishes and making a juice out of kimchi and such. Next were 7 recipes for making bubbly sodas by fermenting hibiscus, coconut water, grapes, lemons, limes, oranges, or fruit juices. The last chapters covered recipes for fermenting mildly alcoholic drinks: 5 beer recipes (including root beet and ginger beer), 10 wines and ciders (including berry wine, apple cider, pear cider, mead, and rice wine), 4 Mexican drinks, and 18 fermented cocktails.

The instructions were easy to follow and most should be easy to do. They don't require expensive equipment or ingredients. I've made yogurt and kefir in the past, and I felt like they gave good instructions for those. It looked like the other recipes were as useful. I plan to try the ginger bug, apple cider (non-alcoholic version), and coconut water soda recipes soon.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.


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