Recipe: Beet Kvass Beverage

Highly nutritious beet kvass purifies the blood, aids digestion, cleanses the liver, and adds enzymes and healthy bacteria to your gut. There can be no recipe simpler than this one. (okay, I jest, but believe me this one is easy!) Take beets, salt, whey and optional garlic, place in a jar, cap, and let it sit on your counter for 2 days. Then open and drink one ounce daily to purify and heal the body. Seriously, that easy! Begin with one ounce in the morning for a week, increase to one ounce morning and night for a week, and gradually take up to 4 oz morning and night. :) For specifics, see below.

Yield: 2 quarts
Prep time: 5 minutesTwo one-quart jars of beet kvass. The lefthand jar contains beets and garlic, and is on its second brew. The righthand one is beets only and is darker because it is the first brew from the beets.
Time till ready: 2 to 3 days

Ingredients:
3 medium-sized beets (size of your fist), quartered
1 tbsp sea salt
1/4 cup whey *
5 whole cloves garlic, peeled (optional)
filtered water

Directions:
Thoroughly wash the beets. Place into a 2-quart glass jar with the salt and whey (and optional garlic cloves) and add filtered water. You can divide the recipe between two 1-quart jars if that's what you have on hand. Cap and let it sit at room temperature (68-72 deg F) for 2 to 3 days. It's ready when the vapor pressure of fermentation pushes the metal lid upwards so that it won't dent in if you push on it. Room temperature allows the healthy lactobacillus bacteria can multiply; in summer (or a warm kitchen) the fermentation process takes ~2 days and in winter 3 or 4 days. The cool thing about this is that once you've finished all but an ounce or two of the kvass, just refill the jar with water, cap, and set it on the counter another two days. You'll get a brew slightly less strong but still healing. Discard the beets after the kvass in the second jar is gone. You can use 1/4 of the brewed kvass as your starter for the next batch instead of whey.

I have to admit, I LOVE it with the garlic. It adds a smooth flavor that is very un-garlicky, not spicy at all! I was quite cautious with the first batch, so I made one quart of beet kvass with garlic and one without. I definitely prefer the garlic.

* What is whey? Whey is the liquid protein from milk. You know when you open a cup of yogurt and there's that yellowy watery stuff on top? That is the whey. Whey is the starter that gets the lacto-fermentation process going in the beet kvass (and in many other ferments). Buy 1 quart of high quality plain or vanilla flavored yogurt, preferably full fat. Over a 1 quart glass bowl place a strainer and line it with a cotton or linen cloth. (Such as an old cloth napkin. Don't use a fuzzy towel unless you like to eat fuzz.) Pour the yogurt into the cloth-lined strainer and allow it to sit at room temperature. The whey will drip out and you are left with your very own thick yogurt (the consistency of Greek yogurt). If you let it sit for several hours, eventually you'll have yogurt cheese in the cloth, which can be used like cream cheese. Yum! (In this recipe, instead of whey, you can substitute an equal amount of coconut kefir, such as that made by Inner-Eco and sold in Colorado at Vitamin Cottage.)