FAQs

Organic Bio-Beet Kvass has been tested Lab tested positive for seven strains of hardy probiotics that will survive the journey through your digestive system:

1. Lactobacillus Plantarum
2. Lactobacillus Brevis
3. Lactobacillus Buchneri
4. Lactobacillus Paracasei
5. Lactococcus Lactis
6. Pediococcus Pentosaccus
7. Leuconostoc Mesenteroides

At bottling the CFU/g in our Kvass has been tested at a whopping 48,000,000,000.  Please note: fermented foods are dynamic living systems which means that the CFU/g is a snapshot in time and will change throughout the life of the ferment. Also, whilst we love these awesome probiotics in our fermented foods we're also just as interested in the health giving properties of the prebiotics in our ferments and all the amazing healing postbiotics that these bacteria make during their lifespans. 

We recommend that you start small and slow with 1-10 mls (this gives your body time to adjust) and build up to 30 mls or more daily - for example first thing in the morning, with meals, in the mid-afternoon or 30mins - 2 hrs before workout/activity.

• Shoot it or sip slowly - the way we like it!

• Mix for a long cool drink. Our current sugar free favourite: Bio-Beet Kvass with cucumber infused sparkling mineral water, lime and ice. Delicious!

• Boost your favourite juices or smoothies.

• Mix with a healthy oil to use as a salad dressing or for dressing warm dishes. 

• For a pop of colour and flavour add to dips, mayonnaise, sushi or gummy sweets. 

• The essential ingredient for an authentic borscht soup - raw and cold in summer or cooked and hot in winter. Or add a dash to your broth. Delicious!

• Use as a starter for making your own ferments at home including making your own sourdough starter. 

• Can replace apple cider vinegar.

Fermented foods are powerfully good for you - which means that when you first start out you can definitely have too much, too soon and as a result experience some not so pleasant symptoms as your body adjusts and responds. We regularly have people who can comfortably consume the equivalent of 5mls or a teaspoon of Bio-Beet Kvass daily for up to a month before they are ready to start increasing that amount. Our advice is to stick with it and trust your body - it wants to go slow for a good reason. Building your digestive health slowly but surely rather than blasting it with too much of a good thing is a much better way to go.

Customers often say to us that they feel like drinking a lot more than 30mls. We have noticed that sometimes people have a powerful response to fermented foods. Perhaps it’s because of all those readily available probiotics, enzymes and nutrients and your body knows it and wants more! Our recommendation is to once again go with your ‘gut’. When you have built up to consuming 30 mls per day comfortably you can drink as much as 120ml or more daily. You will know when you don’t need to drink that much anymore because you just won’t feel like it.

Fermented sour beverages are the original sports drinks - often used by labourers when working in the fields in times gone past.  Bio-beet Kvass is very effective as a stamina drink due to the high level of Nitrates in beetroot and the bio-availability of these fermented Nitrates.  Bio-Beet Kvass will effectively increase your stamina and energy levels and won’t leave you with a low afterwards. Take approximately 30mins to one hour before needed or post workout to aid recovery.

The ultimate hangover cure - Bio-beet Kvass is a well known antidote for the day after too much rich food and/or alcohol.

KEEP REFRIDGERATED or store in a cool dark space below 20 degrees. Unopened Organic Bio-Beet Kvass has a shelf life of approximately 8 months. Once opened keep in the fridge and consume within 6 weeks. Kvass is neutrally acidified and hence preserved so won’t ‘go off’ however it will slowly oxidise as it is exposed to air which effects the taste.

Sometimes small white flecks may appear on the surface of our Kvass - this is a perfectly harmless yeast culture called Kahm yeast that can be consumed or strained off.

The small amount of sediment left in the bottle is part of what keeps the probiotics in our ferments healthy and happy. It is better not to shake the Kvass before use. However, you can shake our sauerkraut juice - it tends to have much more sediment and looks and tastes better after a shake.

Yes – Kvass is naturally effervescent from the carbon dioxide produced during the lacto-fermentation process. Every individual ferment is different and some are more fizzy than others while some are not very fizzy at all. The important thing to note is this does not change the quality or efficiacy of the product. Our Kvass tends towards being less fizzy with a deeper taste as we prefer to ferment for a longer time.

When fermenting every individual batch is different and mostly that does not mean that one batch is better than the other – just predictability different. In addition as we continue to develop our biodynamic culture our Kvass is changing slowly as it continues to improve. For us the ongoing process of building the quality of our ferments is what makes our work really interesting. If you are in any doubt, please contact us via our website, return your product to the store you purchased it from or come and see us at the farmers market.

Yes - we use a vegetable based starter with no animal products.

No - Bio-Beet Kvass does not contain any residual sugars but does contain metabolites that will assist in precluding yeast overgrowths such as Candida albicans and other pathogens. If you are concerned about a Candida it is best to avoid fermented products that do contain residual sugars such as Kombucha or Water Kefir. 

Sometimes we meet people who are concerned about the use of salt in lacto-fermented foods. Cultured vegetables taste salty but the percentage of salt in them is actually very low. We have experimented with our salt levels and got them down as low as we think is workable. We have even made ferments without salt - which did not taste nearly as good! We have a number of regular customers who are very conscious of their salt consumption due to health issues such as hypertension. The majority of these customers have done very well on our Kvass and some have reported improvements in their health. As an aside: beetroot is fantastic for hypertension. We use a whole food Celtic sea salt in our ferments which along with sodium has over 80 different trace minerals in it including iodine. Whole food salts are digested by the body very differently compared with the 100% bleached sodium that some of us grew up with. It is important to note that we do need salt – without it we die. A study published in the American Journal of Medicine in 2006 reads “Sodium intake of less than 2300mg (the daily recommended allowance) was associated with a 37% increase in cardiovascular disease mortality and a 28% increase of all-cause mortality”. As with most things, common sense and balance are key.

Fermented vegetables do not contain lactose or casein unless a whey starter has been used. The term “Lacto” in this case refers to the lactic acid that is produced by the action of the Lactobacillus bacteria.

Beet kvass is a lacto-ferment. We prepare the beets in a manner that encourages the production of lactic and acetic acid rather than alcohol. Both of us are very sensitive to alcohol and have not detected any trace amounts in our Kvass.

Bio-Beet Kvass replaces the need for Apple Cider Vinegar.

This is called Beeturia and sometimes occurs when you consume beetroot. It is perfectly natural and normal.

A number of customers have successfully packed our Kvass in their hold luggage for both interstate and international travel. Generally we like the ambient temperature for our kvass to be below 22DegC - which is the case with the majority of air travel.

Yes - we ship within Australia. The most economical method is to ship 4 x 750ml bottles at a time. We don’t ship overseas as the freight is prohibitive. A number of customers have asked friends to carry our Kvass for them in their hold luggage.

Yes you can. We recommend three out of our range of six Bio-Beet Kvass while pregnant: RESTORE, RENEW and DIGEST. If replenishing Iron is something that you are interested in we would recommend our RENEW - Beetroot, fresh turmeric root and black pepper. Because of the herbs we use in our REPLENISH, DETOX or RECHARGE we recommend that you check with your health professional first before use. 

Generally yes unless your health professional has advised otherwise. Antibiotics indiscriminately wipe out your gut bacteria and re-building your microbiota is a priority after you have taken them. We have no evidence as to the impact of spacing the taking of antibiotics with Kvass, however we suggest take the Kvass and leave a window of a couple of hours before or after you take your antibiotics.

If you are drinking Kvass and breast feeding then your baby will be getting the benefits of the Kvass. Young children only need half the adult dose – some love it, others have a sweet palate and the Kvass is a challenge to be mixed in with juices, smoothies, sparkling water, coconut water or salad dressings. Evidence suggests that new foods need to be offered to children at least 10-15 times before they will begin to like it!

Bio-beet Kvass is a fermented food rich in probiotics, digestive enzymes and nutrients with a number of health benefits as widely reported in scientific papers on fermented foods, beetroot, turmeric, ginger, fennel, etc. Like many good quality whole foods our fermented foods restore and build health by supporting your body’s awesome ability to heal itself, they are not medicines or therapeutic products. Individuals should consult their health professional for medical advice on specific conditions.

“Bio-dynamic” means “life force” and acknowledges that nature is both living and dynamic and much more than the nutrients we can isolate from it. Having trained in Biodynamic Agriculture we wanted to optimise the living nutrition in our fermented products by applying biodynamic principles to our process. Like many artisan food producers we believe this approach can improve the quality, taste and potency of our products. It is a method that treats the ferment as a living system that interacts with the environment including the rhythms of the cosmos - hence the Biodynamic Calendar. We use a two tiered fermentation process when making our kvass which includes the use of our own biodynamic starter culture and its microbiota plus other supportive processes for our ferments such as activating the spring water before use and using a biodynamic calendar as a guide for when we undertake certain processes.

We would love to hear from you. We feel that the potential for fermented foods for restoring and supporting ongoing good health is enormous and still very under-explored. At present we have a small number of clinicians who stock our products in their health practice. In our experience getting the dose right can be the biggest challenge and we would be very happy to share our experiences with interested practitioners.

Yes - our Kvass is raw and unpasteurised. We use a long ferment to ensure the product is stable but it does need to be refrigerated, especially after opening.