I’ve just been handed a jar with about a centimeter of lumpy white sludge in the bottom of it as a present from a lady who waxes lyrical about the benefits of kefir.
However, all I’ve gathered about what to do with it is to stick a bit of it in milk, cover with a cloth and leave somewhere warm where it will grow (shades of ginger beer plants and sourdough starters?)
Given how rapidly I managed to kill the sourdough starter I was given a few years back, I need advice -
How do I keep it alive and growing
What on earth do I do with this rather unappealing-looking lumpy stuff in terms of eating/drinking it?
I have been buying kefir for a couple of years. Mine is supermarket brand stuff. I just drink about 100 millilitres a day. It does appear to have benefits - I did some research. As I am reasonably healthy I shall keep taking it. You never know! It hasn’t done me any harm.
Several people have said they benefitted from it but I wouldn’t know how to get from the sludge in the bottom of a jar to something you can drinnk - just dilute it with milk?
My wife makes kefir, but it’s the water based one which we drink everyday. I know how that works, but haven’t tried the grains adapted for milk. I bet YouTube will show you the right way to look after them.
All I can add is to try some before you go to the trouble of nurturing your own culture. Personally I think it is disgusting. Which no doubt will offend those who really love it.
If my wife was here, I’d be able to tell you, she’s well into it. I have been left with the task of keeping hers alive while she’s away grandchild-sitting in the UK. I managed OK last year, but have forgotten mostly what it is all about.
It doesn’t have to be milk by the way, you can also use just water, but in that case, you would generally also have to add a sugar source.
Straining the grains, before consuming the kefir, through a non-metallic strainer is recommended, because metal strainers can (a) leach metal ions into the culture, potentially with antibacterial effects, and (b) physically destroy the biofilm and blobs. The strained culture blobs can be gently scooped out with a spoon and put into a new culture pot with fresh milk to increase the quantity of grains and make more kefir.
I know quite a lot about the microbiology of these systems, but actually very little about consuming it, keeping it alive, etc, etc.
That seems to amke sense with what I’ve read on-line so thanl you for that @RicePudding
I am slightly doubtful myself, @JaneJones but I’m happy to give it a go. In terms of helping the guts, I have a batch of yougurt on each week which seems to work for me but I’m always willing to give something a go!
We drink some kefir and like the taste. I often pour a bit into my bread flour, as I think I read that something sour helps the sourdough work better. We once had a kefir culture, but as you have to feed it every day it means you’ve got to drink it every day and we soon got tired of that.
The water kefir grains and milk kefir grains aren’t really compatible - they require a different source for feeding (i.e. milk or sugar). Milk grains might possibly work for water for a short while, but then you’d be likely to lose them.
I have a horrible feeling that’s the way things will go with me, and I don’t even know if I like the stuff
However, as far as I can see, nothing is actually going on with it at the moment - the grains (if that’s what they are ) are sitting in some milk but there’s no sign of life so far.
Their growth pattern is extend and embrace, so you won’t see them throwing out tentacles like something out of a horror movie.
My observation of wife’s experiences is that the cultures are both temperature and food material dependent. Sometimes, it takes a couple of days for the growth to kick off, say, when we’ve been travelling with them between France, Ireland and the UK (as happened recently). Her cultures haven’t liked sudden changes in temperature / humidity. My wife has experimented with a variety of milky suspensions, ranging from soya, to almond, to oat, to semi-skimmed and full fat cow’s milk. All of them react slightly differently. She hasn’t had anything turn into a massive biomass so far, but she does hers in small glass jars with (metal) screwtop lids, so maybe that has an influence on the growth.
One of the things with synergistic biofilm colonies that contain both yeast and bacteria is that you need the film forming microorganisms to do the extending and embracing, the mucilaginous ones form the protective film around the colonies and allow exchange/passage of the foodstuff into the colonies. Getting it optimised, like most fermentation, requires a bit of trial and error, except that here, you’re trying to optimise a gaggle of 300+ different geese all claiming their right to exist and live off/ provide for their neighbours !
