Fermentation

Water Kefir - The New Kombucha!

Water Kefir - The New Kombucha!

Before coming to the Ranch, I only knew of kefir as a tasty, sour, probiotic milk product - almost like a liquid yogurt. I loved it, and knew of it’s health benefits, but didn’t think kefir could be anything more. Turns out, kefir can refer to both milk kefir, the product I’ve known and seen in grocery stores, and water kefir, a delicious fermented soda and a staple for us here at Rancho.

Tropical Brewing

Tropical Brewing

The craft brewing movement has migrated to Central America and the Caribbean. A growing number of small scale artisanal producers are building on the American Craft Brewing tradition by incorporating local spices and fruits into traditionally brewed ales. To distinguish themselves, from their temperate counterparts, they are adding a tropical flare and creating innovative flavor combinations

Dairy Dairies: How to Make Cream Cheese with Dairy Kefir

Dairy Dairies:   How to Make Cream Cheese with Dairy Kefir

Dairy Kefir is so interesting to me because it embodies stacking functions - like alchemy, it's possible for 1+1 to equal 4. Milk, grains (scoby) and a days time and voila, you have a delicious base product better than the milk you started with. It's now lightly carbonated, stable in the fridge, resistant to microbial incursion, lower in lactose, tangy, creamy, probiotic and great for your gut.

How to Make a Simple Hooch

How to Make a Simple Hooch

Hooch is a homemade alcoholic beverage and in this blog I’m going to explain how to make it.

For thousands of years humans have been fermenting for recreational, spiritual and medicinal uses. Fermentation allowed humans to store and use ingredients they’d harvested later in the year. Although hooch is an alcoholic beverage, it can also be brewed for medicinal purposes.

Making Microbes: Fungal vs Bacterial Soil Life

Making Microbes: Fungal vs Bacterial Soil Life

Organic gardeners and farmers understand the need to cultivate and protect soil microorganism life. The strategies to do this involve mulching, composting, and avoiding soil disturbance as much as possible. We know that these strategies, in addition to many others, encourage a healthy soil-food-web.

The Peace in Knowing Yeast: How to Brew Your Own Ginger Beer

The Peace in Knowing Yeast: How to Brew Your Own Ginger Beer

I knew there was something wrong when the fraternity brothers put codeine in the keg, when my friends got so sick that they went splat, when thirteen year old me took a sip of every wine bottle in the house when mom and dad weren't looking and I felt like I had done something naughty. European culture is renown for serving alcoholic beverages to children, yet in the USA where I grew up, something about alcohol is taboo. The cultural history reflects just that. Alcohol in Native American early history is absent, contraband could put you behind bars or blind you, prohibition made speakeasies a mischievous and alluring excursion, and even today a cultural lag in how we enjoy alcohol still exists.