The problem with water kefir was the lack of Nitrogen in nutrition, youtube recipes are stupid.

I hate the fact that people on forums and youtube have no freaking clue what they're talking about and will talk their mouths off with no idea on how to do things correctly. This is in reference to my water kefir culture that I've been bringing up for the last three years, and there was lots of suggestions to culture it in coconut water, and many other things. I never got a good sense of the point of the whole thing, not in a biological sense, like I understood milk kefir or kombucha. So my culture was never too strong...oh except the time I thought it was a failed experiment and threw out an old batch in a bottle with fruit juice, and how badly I got drunk that day, yikes. That was my biggest success, and also the biggest blunder as it was all accidental.

Now I know what's wrong, and it's freaking frustrating. Turns out those creatures need lots of calcium, lots of nitrogen sources, something nobody in those freakin' forums or youtube videos mentioned -- I had to look up academic papers in sci-direct to figure that one out! So the sugar-only ferment was actually 'sugar and a fruit or veggie' ferment. Carbon chains from the sugar, and other nutrition like nitrogen from the fruits and veggies. I tried that, the day before yesterday, put some carrots into a batch that was like six months old, untouched. Two days on, it's sour, hella sour, as sour as it can possibly get, it's ready to bottle with a bit of juice.

What. A. Loss. Annoying shit, this.