After 48 hours, the Viili culture is still culturing. It looks a bit like heavy cream, but certainly not "thick and viscous, almost jelly like, very “ropey”" (wells of health), which leads me to think something may not be working yet.
Here it is quietly waiting, I look in on it every hour or so now, projecting hope and love at it - because cultures enjoy a little hope and love...
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| Zero hour |
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| 24 hours |
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| 48 hours |
As you can see, there is a change going on, just not enough of it.
Re-reading the instructions I've noticed that I'm keeping it at the lower temperature range (round about 70F) so I increased the room temp to about 77F to see if that will make a difference. I also banned off an email to the Wells of Health people. They have a really nice return policy that says if the culture isn't viable (for the first culturing) then they will replace it, but first drop them a line and they will help troubleshoot. Apparently, "...99% of the time we are able to help with a successful batch, if the cultures are still on hand." In other words, don't toss it out if it doesn't look like it's broken, as they won't replace it.
The instructions also say it can take longer than 48 hours to make yoghurt from a dry culture, so I'm not terribly concerned yet. I just wish I had cultured it in a dark coloured jar so that it would show up better in the photograph.
As for the kombucha, it's kombuchaing away. Little wisps of light coloured 'smoke' are rising from the mother (which is now sunk to the bottom). There is no sign of a baby SCOBY yet, but I have faith it will grow in it's own time.
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