How to Make Beet Kvass - A Probiotic Rich Fermented Drink for Good Gut Health

Hello dear friends, I am Mary from María's Nido and here on my YouTube channel I share traditional recipes to prepare foods

rich

in nutrients using simple ingredients and today we are going to

make

beet

kvass

, it is a delicious effervescent

drink

rich

in

probiotic

s, now first. What we need to do when we

make

beet

kvass

is to prepare the beets to put them in the jar so that they are organic beets, but don't worry if you don't agree that buying organic beets is not in your budget, you can buy non-organic beets because now We are going to peel them, the first thing I want to do is cut the stems, but we will stay, except for the stems, except for the vegetables, they are all edible and very nutritious, you can sauté them with a little butter. a little olive oil maybe adding a little garlic is a wonderful garnish so don't rule them out.

I'm going to put them aside and cut them. These guys are running away. I'm just going to cut them. all the vegetables put these stems and vegetables to the side, here we go, oh, it will be a beautiful beautiful side dish and we sauté them, okay, now we have the four courses and we remove the vegetables and some recipes will call for using two or three courses. I like to use three to four and since I have four I'm going to use all four. I think this makes the beet kvass

drink

a little richer, so since the beets came in bunches of two, I only bought two bunches and decided that I'm going to use the four strokes now, the next thing we need to do is peel the beets when you make this, just a little cooking tip.

I highly recommend that if you have a red cutting board and a red towel, now is the time. to get them out because they can be a little dirty and they stain and if you have an apron, this is the time to put it on right, what we're going to do is just cut these little tails off now, don't do it. Don't throw them away either, let's put them in a bowl, save them and use them in a vegetable broth, they're wonderful, they're nutritious and definitely don't waste them now if they're not organic, you can throw them away now, let me take the rest of these tails off, This one only has a small one, now the next thing we need to do is peel them, you might want to put on gloves.

This is that the beets release their juice as you peel them and they can stay in your hands. I don't worry, I can usually wash them pretty well and I cook all the time and wash my hands a lot. so it eventually fades pretty easily, but if you want to definitely, this is the time to put on gloves before you start peeling them and well, now that I'm going to peel them, I'm going to bring you a little closer so you can see exactly what I do, okay, now we will prepare to peel the beets. The first thing I want to say is that if you use bare hands, make sure they are clean, and if you use gloves, make sure they are clean.

Clean because we don't want to introduce bad bacteria into the jar that we're going to put the chopped beets in to make the beet kvass, so the first thing you want to do is if you have a small paring knife. It's going to work great and you just go in like this, let's see what's the best way to show it to you and everything you're going to do the way you're comfortable with, just go down and remove the skin. I like to keep it flat in the cut. board because it's safer, give it the feet where we would cut off the top or the tails and then just get as close to the beat as you can and just peel the skin off.

Now, something I want to say about this while we're peeling. You can leave the skin on these beets if they are organic. If they are not organic, I would remove the skin, but if they are organic, you can leave the skin on. However, I have made beet kvass both ways with skin on skin. and I prefer it without skin. I think with the skin on the flavor might be too earthy, but I think if you see little spots that don't look perfect or like that, you just get them. off, but that's what my personal preference is that we remove the skin, I just feel like it gives the kvass a nicer flavor.

I'm just picking it to get the last bits of this with a sharp paring knife. This works wonderfully, they are nice, small and easy to handle, so we already have one ready. I'm going to peel the rest and then bring them back to you. Well, I already have the peeled beets and what I'm going to do is take the peels and put them in this dish and I'll save them to make a

good

vegetable broth. A little tip I will share is by trying to keep cooking real food as affordable as possible. As possible, try to waste as little as possible and these will make a great wonderful addition to a

good

vegetable broth.

Well, now here's our beet, we have our feet on the ground, so you want to take this time. I think it's a little bit easier if you have a chef's knife or something, you know, a bigger knife instead of the paring knife and we're going to cut them into two smaller pieces now, a tip on this, don't cut them too much. small because if you cut them too small when they're in the jar fermenting, they'll ferment too quickly and you might end up with like a beet brandy, a beet alcohol, and you don't want to do that, you want to make a kvass, so cut it in half and then leave it like that.

Again, we usually have feet, what I like to do is kind of a medium sized beet, chop it up and then let's look at one, two, three, four. I think I'm going to take four slices along this one, actually three slices to get four. four bits here now I just want to show you what the size is, as you'll see, it's about the size of the first joint of my thumb, you know, and I have small hands, but this is a good size, even let me see. maybe something like this this one is a little bit small but okay let me see these I think they're a good size so I'm going to set them aside and continue cutting these are on top and then we'll get ready to put them in the jar.

Well, I've got all the beats cut out and the next step we're going to do is just put them into this. You can enjoy the joy that I am wearing. It's a half gallon jar and we're just going to drop them in it, it couldn't be easier, that's flying. You can also do this in a quart jar, canning jar, or any jar you have. I like to use the canning jar. jars I'll explain why in a minute, but if you make it in a quart jar, you'll only want to use about half the amount of beads, so I'm going to continue putting all of these in and then I'll show you the next thing we're going to do.

Okay, let's get those and perfect and you'll see that they fill this is perfect, they fill the jar halfway and that's what you're looking for, at least this is what I would like to do, I think some recipes may call for, as I mentioned earlier , a few times less, but I think that beet kvass is more watery and does not have as rich a flavor, so the next thing we are going to do is very easy, what we are going to do is put salt on the beets and this, how I use it when I make sauerkraut, it's the Celtic sea salt and it's the coarse ground grind of a coarse grind, uh, you'll see it's very coarse ground and I have two tablespoons and I'm going to put it in well.

I don't worry about dissolving the salt in the water first. I have never found it necessary, it will dissolve and be fine and that saves you a step now, one thing I want to mention is that some people will add a way to reduce the salt and add in some way, as you know, it is the byproduct of various cultured dairy products. I kind of like to drink it and add it to sparkling water and drink it. I think I mentioned that in my sauerkraut video, but I don't like adding it to

fermented

drinks. I think the flavor is noticeable. and it changes the flavor I'm looking for, I find it changes the flavor of sauerkraut and I find it changes the flavor of beet kvass, so instead of 1 tablespoon sea salt and 1/4 cup lime, I just like to use 2 tablespoons of sea salt works very well in coarse soil, so it's not fine soil just coarse soil, it works very well, it will ferment beautifully and be very tasty, so I just want to give you that advice if you want to use it.

The way you certainly can, so you can decrease the salt, but I don't find the drink to be particularly salty, so you may want to try it. Learn a few different ways and see what you like. If you have done it this way, I would appreciate it. interested to hear what you think in the comments below if you like the taste now the next thing we will do is add spring water, it couldn't be easier now to make B cabassa, we want to use water now if you don't have access to spring water, don't worry you can use tap water but you will want to boil it and let it cool or you just want to pour some and let it sit overnight and the reason for this do you want to let the chlorine evaporate because chlorine and water can get in the way the ability of good bacteria to grow and make this a

probiotic

rich drink, so keep that in mind when choosing what water you want to use, but do you have options?

Okay, now this is spring water. I've got a little bit left in this bottle, so I'm going to pour this, all right, and then I'm going to continue pouring this and I'm going to go up to the rim, well, this part right here, uh, the neck, you can see it already has a color. beautiful. It's okay, it's perfect. Well, we filled it the right amount with water and now I want to talk to you about what is the right lid to use. you're fermenting these are plastic storage lids that are made specifically for canning jars now when I'm fermenting on the counter I don't use this and the reason is because ah so water kefir or water kefir depending on how you say it sauerkraut these kinds of things get very bubbly and fizzy and they need to release their carbon dioxide and I find that if I put this on and it's on my counter and it's bubbling and bubbling, when I go to release some carbon dioxide and then, squeezing it, squeeze it again to keep the oxygen out, sometimes the buildup can be quite significant and when I go to release it it can go up, as you know, which scares me a little bit, so I tend not to use this. because once I'm done fermenting this, I'm going to change the lid that I use, which I'll show you in a minute, and then I put this lid on and I put it in the refrigerator because once you put this in the refrigerator, when it's gotten to the flavor that you like and the fizz that you would like, fermentation will slow down significantly in the refrigerator and so at that time this lid is appropriate, but what I do instead is I like to use a canning lid and a canning ring and the reason for this is because this goes on very easily and then I just tighten with my fingers, you know, you don't have to twist it, just tighten with my fingers and when I see the fizz building up, I'll loosen it up. the ring and sometimes if it's loose, no problem, it will actually be part of the carbon dioxide.

I will put the ring back on, leave it for another day and let more bubbling build up, and so on, however, sometimes this is how it is. I mentioned that it's very important and this will actually form a seal and why I like to use this instead of this. It is very easy to remove without much fanfare. I don't know what to call it. I've only used the adult end of a can opener if it's too tight and I can't get it out with my fingers and just like that, you know, and carbon dioxide comes out, so that says it feels safer, so that's all you do. , so put the lid on the can. put the ring on like I said you can use this just brace yourself a little bit so when you loosen it to let some of the build up out you might have a little bit of force so that's all you do and Now what I like to do is to make sure that it's placed properly and I'm just going to give it as you'll see that the salt has already dissolved and this is getting a beautiful color, but I do see that it's not particularly dissolved.

We'll just shake it a little bit like this and that's it and now all we have to do is this in a warm place in your kitchen, preferably undisturbed on a counter or on top of your refrigerator or in a pantry anywhere you can sit at room temperature and you know room temperature is different in every home and depending on what time of year it is, between 68 degrees and 85 degrees, so you have a lot of wiggle room. I live in central Texas and This is the month of August and it can be a hundred degrees outside so the coldest we are going to get in our house is going to be around 80 so I also want to share with you affects the speed of The hotter the fermentation, the faster it will ferment, so how do you know when it's ready?

Well what you want to do is watch the bubbles come out and the color intensify and after a few days take your little one off you know you might have been taking it every day depending on how many bubbles you say it's possible that you're releasing some of that pressure every day, but after a few days check it out, take a look, take a clean spoon and try it see if you like it it's effervescent it's tasty it has it's generally to your liking Sometimes you know depending on the variety of rhythms and all that you know the nature of it and all rhythms are different I can leave it on me sometimes for a week and then it will really be a nice deep red color and have the flavor that I'm looking for at that moment.

What you'll want to do is use amesh strainer over a bowl or a large measuring cup, whatever you have, strain the smoothies and then put the beet kvass cake in, just keep it in this, but you can definitely decant it into a bottle. whatever you want, in fact, the one I have in my refrigerator that I'm going to show you. I think I decanted it into a bottle, but whatever you have is fine and the good news is that it's a very, very frugal and affordable drink. because you can reuse the beats and you'll want to repeat all the steps we just did, you'll want to put the beats back in the jar, you don't need to rinse them to get rid of any little good bacteria that might stay in there will be very helpful.

Replace the rhythms. This time, maybe about a quarter cup of the ready-made beet kvass and you can add that as a little insurance policy to help feed the good bacteria. and if you do that, you probably only need to use a tablespoon of sea salt because you have all the beneficial bacteria in that quarter or half cup, whatever amount you want to use to start the fermentation and then you'll do it. Same thing, put the lid on it, put it in a warm place in your kitchen where it can sit undisturbed and keep an eye on it for the next few days and watch the fizzing start, try it and see how much you like it.

Now pretty much all you'll get is two batches of good beet kvass, but don't worry, you won't wait. Waste these beets, these beets have become very rich in probiotics now that they've gone through this fermentation process and you can cut them up, grate them, whatever the case may be, and put them in a salad, they're wonderful, they're tart, they're spicy and they had really delicious flavor, really lovely, and speaking of salads, in addition to drinking beef kvass, you can also use it instead of vinegar when you're making a salad dressing and that's a good combination of things to have the grated beets that you use to make beet kvass and a salad dressing where you use a little bit of the liquid cloth B, drinkable beet kvass to make your vinaigrette, so I'm going to put the lid back on the can and tighten the ring with the fingers, that's really all you need to do and I'll leave this aside for now. and I'm going to go to my refrigerator and I'm going to wash my hands first so you can see how stained or not so stained they look in case you decide to do this without wearing gloves, but I'm going to go into my refrigerator and take out the bottle of beet kvass I have and I'll show you what it looks like and we'll try it.

This is the beet kvass that I took from my refrigerator. I had

fermented

it a while ago, so I decanted it. I did not remember it. It was funny. I thought many times I just leave it, drain the beets, and transfer them to another quart jar, but I was a little fancy this time. I put it in a decanter, I put it in a nice bottle and let's try it when you see the color, it's just beautiful, it gets very rich especially and something I want to mention to you is that you're going to ferment it on the counter and then you're going to strain the beets and then you are going to refrigerate.

Some people put them in the back of their refrigerator and let them slowly ferment for another six months and the flavor will become richer and richer and this has In fact, it's been in my refrigerator for quite a while and the flavor will become richer and richer and the salty taste will decrease less and less and it's just a slight defect, so let's try it hmm, well, that's very good, very good. I really like beet kvass. a lot now something I want to mention about this like I mentioned put it in the back of your freezer now your freezer your refrigerator you can put this in once you strain it and refrigerate it you can start drinking it right away or if you want you can put it put it in the back from your refrigerator and let it ferment slowly for many months and see how you like it, see how you like it after a month, after two months, etc., something that is very good to do with beef kvass.

Remember beets are in season, they come into season around June and will start to fade in September, October or so, if you are making beet kvass during the summer, strain the beets and decant them into a bottle, add some cloves and a little of orange peel and then put them. Put it back in the back of your refrigerator and then come Christmas time, take it out and see if you like it. It can be prepared like this, with the orange flavor and some cloves, it can be a wonderful after dinner cordial, especially for people who don't make it. drink alcohol, it's rich in probiotics, it will help with digestion, especially after big holiday meals, and the taste is delicious, a little bit of citrus, a little bit of clove, very festive and very festive, so it's just something I want to share , TRUE?

Well, I'm going to put this aside for now and just give you one more look. It's going to be beautiful. I'm going to put this on my counter and let it ferment and I hope you do the same too. and if you want full instructions on how to make this beet kvass check out my website Mary's nest com and if you like this video I hope you will give me a thumbs up and share it with your friends and if interested in learning more about cooking beet traditional foods I hope you will subscribe to my channel and make sure to click the notification bell that will alert you every time I upload a video well that's all for today but thank you very much for joining me here and I hope to have it next time .

Join me here next time in my mountain region kitchen. Love and God bless you.