WARNING! To make fizzy Kefir-ade, you need to have the juice in a bottle that has a tight lid. However, if you use a glass jar with a tight seal and there is too much sugar, the glass jar can explode. Leaving a large air space can help, but I have heard people say their jars exploded anyway, and I don’t have any scientific data to say what jars are truly “safe.” There are bottles designed to release pressure before they explode -- these are typically beer bottles for home-brewers. However, their shape makes it a little more difficult to deal with getting juice in and out.

I have several solutions I have used. One, you can use a plastic Nalgene container. These do seal, however their lids are flexible and distort if there is too much pressure, and the lexan plastic just is not going to explode. Or, you can use a glass jar with a similar plastic lid, though I have found these don’t hold enough pressure to get “fizzy”.

Another solution is to use a wire-top canning jar, and instead of using the wire to seal it, tie it shut with a rubber band. The wire-top jars are typically much thicker glass, and the gasket does seem to release pressure when needed, so even using the wire might work.

The jar shown in the picture above is Nalgene. This kind of plastic is fairly inert, as plastics go, and it travels very well. But it is probably better to avoid plastics in general.

 

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