BEET KVASS revisited

See that big bottle with beets in it?  That was first ferment with cut up beets, 5-6 med sized ones, washed and partially peeled and cut into 1" cubes or chunks.  I also added about a 4 inch piece of ginger sliced and not peeled.   I like the taste of ginger with beets.  You don't want to release too much beet juice the first ferment or lactobacilli will make alcohol instead of lactic acid and the other good stuff.  This first ferment at the end of 5 days, is very thick like blood which it resembles because it is a liver tonic, a liver and blood cleanser.  In a 1/2 gallon jar like the one in the picture, I use almost 2 TBS of Real Salt to help the ferment and keep the bad bacteria from growing.  So when you pour off the first ferment, you may want to dilute the juice up to 50/50 with chlorine-free water and drink about 8 ounces twice a day.  It will clean out your bowels too.

Second ferment;  Chop up the beet cubes to release more juice....like one cube cut twice.  Fill with chlorine-free water and add more salt but not as much this time....1 1/2 TBS salt and let ferment another 5 days at room temperature.  This second ferment is thinner but still effective.

Third ferment:  After I pour off the second ferment water, I take the beets and ginger pieces and put into my food processor with more chlorine-free water and process.  Now all the juice that is possible is out.  I also add about 1/3 cup kefir whey to this last ferment just to be sure of getting enough lactobacilli into the juice to consume the sugar.  I add only 1 TBS salt to ferment and again allow it to ferment 5 more days.

When I pour that off, I throw the beet mass onto the compost pile since there is very little nutrition left in it.

The 1 liter jar with air lock to the right is my turnip ferment and the quart jar to the left has rutabaga in it.  The rutabaga turned out to be too chewy and crunchy, the turnips are just right.