My water kefir tastes nasty

[nonniecita]

Hi everyone!
I just tasted my first batch of water kefir and I don't think I'll be able to drink it. It's not horrible, just not good. I used 2 quarts water, 12 Tbs sucanat, ginger slices, lemon slices, a fig, and about 2 Tbs water kefir grains. It's brownish in color (from the sucanat) and a bit fizzy, (let ferment about 48 hrs.) It smells like several things to me... alcohol, wine, beer, and vinegar and tastes like tose too...it does have a nice carbonation, though. The grains are pretty small, like 1/2 the size of short grain rice, some smaller than that, some a little larger. Did I do something wrong?
Next time I'll add less water.
TIA!!
Michelle

[RidentMama]

I hear ya! It's taking me a little bit to get used to. Now, I could not stand the ginger/lemon/fig combo. But once I made the grape juice kefir...WOWZA!!! I love it! I also enjoy the ginger ale kefir (a little less lime next time, and a little more ginger and I think I'll have it perfect). It is fizzy, but that's part of the enjoyment of it!

Your grains do sound small, but maybe they're just newbies. When I'm not using mine, I let them enjoy time on my windowsill with fresh sweetened water every day. I've noticed that there are a LOT of newbies now, but the level of grains in the jar keeps going up, so I'm obviously doing something right.

[caedmyn]

You might just want to try a different flavor. I really like kefir lemonade and lemonade combos (strawberry lemonade, blueberry lemonade, raspberry lemonade, etc). My mom likes plain water kefir, and my dad like blueberry water kefir (just add a few frozen blueberries).

[memory maker]

when I first started with my water kefir the only way I could drink it was to mix it with some juice once it had already brewed. the longer you let it brew the more it is going to smell like alcohol. I usually only let mine brew 12-24 hrs

[snowbunny]

For some reason my first batch of water kefir was terribly unappealing (though DS loved it), but all subsequent batches have been phenomenal. I started drinking it diluted with water and before long there was more water kefir than water.