If you do not have Kefir grains you can always purchase them online or find a friend who has. Once you have them, they keep growing and you can then seperate them to make more batches. Its always a good idea to have separate jars incase one of them die, then you have a back up.
Just a few things you must not do with your Kefir Grains.
- Never wash your kefir grains with tap water, the grains need to be washed in unchlorinated water (bottled water). You don't need to wash them unless you suspect something wrong with them.
- Don't use metal equipement, to much metal kills the grains.
What you need
- Plastic or wooden spoon (don't use metal, the grains die with to much contact with metal)
- Plastic or glass bowl
- Plastic sieve
- Glass jug if you wish to store it
How to make Kefir Milk
Place your Kefir Grains in a glass jar, pour the amount of milk you would like to drink. Eg if it is your first try with milk Kefir, put in half a cup, as your stomach adjust add more milk in every time.
Leave your Milk Kefir out in a cool place for 24 hours (depending on your climate), if you live in a extremely hot place like I do (35-45'C), I leave my kefir in the fridge with the lid loosely on, as it carbonates, for 1-2 days. If I feel like it is going too slow (like in winter) I leave it out on the counter.
Putting it in the fridge will only slow down the fermentation.
You can taste the kefir as it ferments to see what stage you perfer.
I normally remove it from the fridge when it has started to seperate slightly. You can see in the picture above it has started to seperate.
I pour the Kefir through a sieve into a plastic bowl, I use a plastic spoon or spatula to move it around until all the kefir milk has gone into the bowl, leaving the grains in the sieve.
I wash out the fermenting jar and pop the kefir grains back into the jar, top up with milk and place back into the fridge or leave it on the counter, depending on the weather and when I would like another serving.
The Milk Kefir I drink straight or I make a smoothie for the whole family. I also store it in the fridge in a clean jar for a day or so, as seen in the picture below. It makes it easier to use when making a smoothie or wanting a little glass to shoot down.
How to store kefir
If you are going away, store you kefir in the back of your fridge filled with milk. When you return you can give the milk kefir to your dogs or pigs (they love it), if it doesn't taste too bad you can always make cottage cheese, I will post how to make kefir cottage cheese soon.
If you want a break of milk kefir you can always store it in the fridge with a little milk and every 2 or 3 days top it up with alittle more milk, to feed the grains.
Something has gone wrong
If you feel like your grains are not fermenting and are not growing, you can put them into some Cream, which will give them a boost and hopefully revitalize them.
You could also give them a wash with bottled water and start again with fresh milk.
If you are getting an abundance of Kefir grains and have no one to give them to, you can always feed them to your chickens, dogs or pigs, they love them and are extremely beneficial.
With Kefir Grains you can make:
Smoothies
Water kefir
Cottage cheese
kefir butter
Kefir butter balls.
No comments:
Post a Comment