Making Kefir in Your Kitchen

I have always been interested in how to live and eat in the most healthy way I could. Having a mother who was always dieting, and a father who was a diabetic meant I often thought about the consequences of eating different foods.

Recently a series of events brought a book called "Nourishing Traditions" to my attention. It seemed for a few months that everywhere I went someone was reading this book. At one women friend's house, every time I went there I'd find something interesting to explore in this book. Eventually I had to purchase a copy.

I was fascinated by the descriptions of how people have traditionally prepared grains, and how different that was from how we prepare them now. Traditional people always soaked grains, as well as things like beans and lentils quite a long time before they cooked them.

Often in fact, grains have been soaked with fermented milk products, and it was mentioned how this improves the digestibility of the grains by breaking down some of the substances in the grains that are difficult for our systems to process. They discussed the use of kefir, a milk product similar to yoghurt, which was particularly helpful in this way.

I had not heard of kefir before, and my curiosity led me on an Internet search to find out about it. Eventually I located some people in a town near me who were willing to share the culture that would permit me to make my own kefir. I love it! Now, kefir has become one of the things that is pretty much always happening in my kitchen, and I share the culture with other people and teach them how to make this great fermented product.

On this page I will show how I do it, and give you some idea of what is possible. There are many wonderful kefir sites on the Internet and I encourage you to explore as many of them as you have time for. What I am doing here is only showing what works for me, and from what I can tell, there are as many ways to do it as there are people.

This is a photo of a spoon full of kefir culture. Kefir "grains", as they are sometimes called, are a symbiotic organism made up of a number of lactic enzymes/bacteria which co-exist to form this stable culture. There is no connection with grains like wheat, rye and oats. Many of these lactic organisms exist naturally in milk as it comes from the cow, and help both the calf and humans to digest the milk. All these organisms are destroyed however, when we pasteurise milk at high temperatures. Making the milk into kefir is one way to convert it back into some thing more like its natural state.

Kefir culture looks like small pieces of cauliflower but when you feel it, its squishy, like gummy bears. This is about a rounded tablespoon of culture, and it is enough to culture about a litre of milk into kefir.

To make kefir, simply combine this culture with some milk and let it sit on your kitchen counter for about twenty four hours. Over that time, the milk will thicken and develop a texture more like buttermilk. Often the culture will float to the top. I consider my kefir is ready when a chopstick will stand up in it.

In this photo, I stirred my completed culture, and you can see the culture against the bottom of the glass jar. This is my whole culture reserve, so it has much more culture in it than you would have normally. Its generally recommended to make your kefir in some kind of glass container, but they certainly don't have to look like this. I started using canning jars, because I had them handy, but eventually found them to be a pain in the neck because the milk and kefir are sticky, and awkward to clean out of the threads on the jars. I found this container at the thrift store, and presume it was designed as a vase. I put the mug in the picture to give you a sense of the size of the container. Certainly you could make your kefir in a bowl if you wanted.

One of the organisms in kefir produces a small amount of alcohol (less than 1%) and this alcohol eventually ferments into a small amount of vinegar. This makes the kefir batch attract fruit flies, so I usually keep my batch loosely covered, in this case by the lid from some cottage cheese, will small canning jars just for weight. You can't close it tightly, because the fermentation also makes carbon dioxide, which can build up pressure in your vessel, and cause it to squirt out when you open the top.

When the kefir has thickened, you simply strain out the culture to use again, and the liquid that drains off is your kefir. You can drink it fresh, make it into smoothies, bake with it, or put it in the fridge to store it. Note that we don't put it in the fridge to preserve it, the fermentation takes care of that just fine. However, at room temperature it will continue to ferment (and get stronger and stronger tasting). Most people like it milder, and thus like to slow down the fermentation by lowering the temperature. Note that if you bake with the kefir you will loose the pro-biotic benefits that it gives because the heat will kill the organisms, however you will still get the benefit of improving the digestibility of the grains if you let it sit for a while before you bake it.

While I have seen instructions on other web sites saying kefir should never come in contact with metal, I personally have had no trouble using decent quality stainless steel with my kefir. Here is the small bowl and strainer I use for my kefir.

Here is my kefir batch with the milk strained off. As I said, this is way more than someone would be using regularly. I am deliberately growing lots of grains to get caught up on the waiting list I have for people to receive culture.

To make your next batch of kefir, simply put these grains back in your container, add milk, cover it loosely and wait another twenty four hours. This process can go on indefinitely. In the original nomadic tribes where kefir is first known to have been made, the culture was considered part of the family assets, to be passed to the children and grand children. Historians believe these people have been culturing kefir for at least two thousand years.

The things that affect the speed of the fermentation process are the amount of culture in your milk, and the ambient temperature. In warmer months, your kefir will thicken up much faster than in cooler months. As your culture multiplies, it will ferment your batch of milk faster as well.

There are some things that can damage your kefir culture. Chlorinated water is one of those things, and so is high heat. Room temperature or cool water are best for your kefir, and you can get rid of most of the chlorine by filtering it or letting it just sit overnight in a bowl or jug. Some sites recommend washing your kefir grains every time you start a new batch. Some other sites say its not necessary. I personally cannot imagine a good reason to wash it, and in fact, think it upsets the delicate balance of the organisms within the culture. It sure slows down the next batch if you do wash it.

If you want to take a break from kefir for a few days or weeks, you can give your culture some fresh milk, and then put it in the fridge, where the fermentation process will slow way down. In the fridge it will still ferment but it might take a batch ten days instead of overnight. It will need fresh milk every week or so, as it is a live organism, like sourdough.

In this process your grains will multiply. While you will start with about a tablespoon, soon you will have two or three tablespoons. There are a number of things you can do then. You can give some kefir culture away to a friend, or if you got your culture from me, you can give me back your excess that I can then pass along to someone else who emails me for starter culture. You can even eat some of the grains if you like.

If your kefir batch ferments too long it can separate as you see in this picture. This batch has separated into curds and whey. This is not a disaster. This kefir is perfectly fine to consume. It might have become a little stronger than you like in the process, but it definitely is not unsafe. One of the things to do with a batch like this, is to strain out the culture, and then strain what is left through a coffee filter. What you are left with is the texture of a soft cream cheese that is quite mild, and makes a great base for any kind of dips, or even cheese cake. Most of the zing goes into the clear whey, and other sites suggest using the whey to make fermented vegetables or even putting it in your bath.

Another thing that can happen if your kefir ferments too long is that the top of the batch can become covered with a layer of soft velvety white mould that reminds me very much of what you see on the outside of a wheel of brie or camembert. At this point, the kefir becomes too strong tasting for me, but I believe this is simply an overgrowth of one of the natural components of the kefir. I generally make a batch like this into cream cheese, and this is the only case in which I ever rinse my grains before I start the next batch, simply to control the amount of that organism in my next batch of kefir. I gently rinse them with room temperature water that has had the chlorine filtered out of it and then proceed as usual.

Kefir is reported to have many health benefits. From my observation, the strongest of these is with the digestive system. Kefir is a probiotic, like yoghurt, but it has many more active ingredients that yoghurt. I found that after using kefir for a few days my digestive system developed the most regular rhythm it had ever had in my life. Whie I was never actually constipated, I have had several reports from people to who I have given kefir culture, that consuming kefir regularly was the best solution that they had ever found for constipation.

In the same vein, suddenly consuming a large amount of kefir could find you visiting the bathroom a lot for a period of time. Fresh, mild kefir is quite enjoyable, and I have know people to indulge in several large glasses at once. I suggest moderation, a small or medium glass a day.

Kefir is often recommended for building up your internal body flora after a round of anti-biotics, because of the number of beneficial organisms is contains. It can be taken while taking the anti-biotics to help maintain good function in your gut (except of course for the anti-biotics that are not to be taken with dairy products).