[hubie]

Is the ginger beer plant the same thing as water kefir, and just out of curiosity, is water kefir the same thing as milk kefir?  I know Raj Apte has done quite a bit of work on the ginger beer plant, but it surrounds a specific culture (DSM 2484) he obtained from a German lab.  I was very interested in the work he presented on the ginger beer plant, but I cannot seem to find someone who is selling that culture.  However, I can find a number of people selling "water kefir," which is something that I see being used (incorrectly?) interchangeably with ginger beer plant. 

I currently have an active milk kefir going, and I would love to add a ginger beer plant as well.  I was wondering if I could just order some water kefir and it would be the same.

[tschmidlin]

No, GBP is not water kefir.

I have some, but I'm not sure it is still alive, it has been a while since I played with it.  IIRC, you don't want to buy from retro cultures because it is not true GBP, and be careful of other sites that sell yeast sludge cultured from ginger, which is also not the real thing.

[MDixon]

Mine, never, ever grew...just kept making GB and never got more plant. Mine may be alive, got it from Raj, but you make the stuff so fast I couldn't keep up with the consumption.

[hubie]

I know what you mean about the consumption.  With my milk kefir, I'm the only one in the house that drinks it, so if I'm falling behind in my consumption I put the milk and grains in the fridge to slow it down.  It doesn't help that the grains grow, which makes the ferment go faster.

That's too bad about GB and water/sugar kefir.  I was hoping that it was like talking about variants on a cultures, so that the differences between them were like talking about the differences between different ale yeasts.