5. How to Make, Use, and Love Milk Kefir

It’s easy to make this amazingly healthy, probiotic-packed dairy ferment using traditional kefir grains. Learn how to incorporate low-sugar, delicious flavors, and even how to use fresh kefir to make probiotic cheese!

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Gianaclis Caldwell: Today I’m going to talk to you about milk kefir. I cover that in my new book, which will be out in just a few weeks in May. Storey Publishing, thank you very much, and incredible photography by Karmin Trosset. There are recipes in there for yogurts, kefirs, and all sorts of wonderful dairy probiotic ferments.

[00:00:35] So milk kefir has its origins way back, so far back that they don’t even know how it got started, and I’ll tell you more about the little clumps that you’ll need that are called grains but are not grains, are actually these gelatinous structures that are going to ferment the milk. But first I want to back up a little bit and tell you that you are going to find [00:01:00] two kinds of milk kefir.

[00:01:02] The first, and the most common kind you’re going to see, is store-bought. Now, this type of milk kefir, and this is a fantastic brand, Nancy’s, proudly from Oregon, is not made from the kefir grains. Kefir grains are rarely, if ever, used commercially because they continue to ferment even at refrigeration temperatures, and because these grains, in addition to producing probiotics and breaking down that milk sugar, they also produce carbon dioxide, which is a gas which will explode a carton eventually.

[00:01:39] You don’t have to worry about that in your refrigerator, however, with your glass jars. This type of kefir, milk kefir, is made using a combination of cultures, those are the microbes that ferment the milk, that are more similar to buttermilk and yogurt, usually with a little [00:02:00] yeast added to kinda simulate that bubbliness that you get from the traditional kefir.

[00:02:06] The Nancy’s brand also has inulin added, which is a prebiotic. Now, you can get plenty of inulin daily if you eat a lot of fibrous vegetables, which you should be doing anyway. And Nancy’s also has the addition of the enzyme lactase, and I’m gonna tell you how to add that yourself, which will ensure that every bit of that milk sugar lactose is broken down, so if you have any lactose digestibility problems, that will take care of it.

[00:02:40] In addition to that, it makes the milk a little sweeter, and I’ll tell you more about that in a minute. But let’s get on to milk kefir grains and what those are. In this particular slide that’s up, you’ll see a little strainer with some of the grains having been drained and rinsed. So [00:03:00] these are these little globules.

[00:03:02] Now, what are they? They are, as we said, the source for your microbes. They strictly are called a SCOBY, S-C-O-B-Y. SCOBY stands for symbiotic community of bacteria and yeast. Now, that word community, you’re also going to see it very conveniently interchanged with colony, commune, or culture. They all work.

[00:03:33] They’re all the same thing. But basically, these are microorganisms that have figured out how to live together harmoniously, what a wonderful model, and create their own housing units. So the housing unit is the gelatinous part, which is also very healthy to eat. That gelatinous part is called kefiran or kefiran, and it is been, has been studied and researched for its own [00:04:00] properties for health and healing, including things like topical use for healing burns.

[00:04:05] It’s amazing, and there’s a lot yet to be learned about milk kefir. So these, this, the kefir grains originated in the Caucus area of Europe. They were highly prized and considered a gift from Allah, so a gift from the heavens, and they still really are. This is a quart of kefir that I made yesterday, and I’m gonna go take you through those fermentation steps, and I used for this our fresh goat’s milk.

[00:04:36] Now, you can use other types of milk. If you don’t have access to your own fresh milk, this is what I recommend for, b- just simply because it’s a good quality, widely available milk. Now, one thing I’m always telling people is to remember that milk was never meant to see the light of day. Keep that in mind, you’re gonna know that the fresher it is, the [00:05:00] better.

[00:05:00] The longer it’s been in the food chain system, the more it’ll have changed. Not necessarily in an unhealthy way, but it just isn’t the same thing. This grass milk is non-homogenized, which is always preferable for the microbes. It is ultra-pasteurized, which in the case of many home ferments is fine, but in other cases it’s not.

[00:05:27] We use it regularly for our kefir when our goats aren’t giving milk, and have had no problem with it at all. But you will have trouble with it if you try to use it on an heirloom ferment such as vielly, which is, I cover in this book. So feel free to use that kind of milk, but even honestly, a regular old gallon of the h- the, the least expensive milk you can find will still make some darn good kefir If you’re going to use fresh [00:06:00] farm milk, it is not a bad idea to lightly heat treat it This is, will help the microbes have a clean slate and create only those probiotics and things that the kefir microbes are good at.

[00:06:16] If you use a good quality raw milk, you’re going to have that native flora from the raw milk that’s collected during those flora. That flora is collected during milking. It isn’t in the milk inside the animal. So if you have that in here, they’re going to want to grow, too. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it could interfere with the fermentation of the kefir microbes.

[00:06:46] So I typically do a light heat treatment on that, and I’ll tell you more about that in a minute. Here’s an up-close picture down in the left of some really great, gnarly, big kefir grains. So these were roughly the size of a [00:07:00] tablespoon. Kefir grains are going to grow to a different size depending on those kefir grains.

[00:07:07] So throughout the world, these grains have been studied, and the bacteria, yeasts, and sometimes fung- fungi too, that are in them vary all over the world. But typically, you’re going to have a lot of lactic acid-producing bacteria. But then you’re also likely to have a little bit of acetobacter, bacteria from the acetobacter family.

[00:07:35] Now, those produce acetic acid. That is a vinegar acid. That’s how you make vinegar. If you have grains that have a lot of acetobacter compared to the lactic acid bacteria, it’s gonna have a vinegary taste. Similarly, if you have kefir grains that produce a whole bunch of different yeasts versus more of just that lactic [00:08:00] acid bacteria, it’s going to have a yeasty flavor.

[00:08:04] Quite literally, for years, I believed I did not like kefir, but I’d been working with grains that had more of the yeasts and acetobacter. So if you haven’t tried kefir, or better yet, if you have and haven’t fallen in love with it, give it another try with different grains. I got the grains I love the most from Gem Cultures, G-E-M.

[00:08:29] So it’s a fantastic flavor. I love it so much now, I can’t even tell you. So if you are doing that choosing your milk, you know those milk sources. Another question I get a lot is, “Can I use plant milks?” You can. You can make your own almond milk, or you can buy it, but that purchased milks are going to have a lot of additives, so these plant milks.

[00:08:54] If you’re going to use real kefir grains to ferment, let’s just say almond milk- [00:09:00] It will work as long as you add some table sugar to that plant milk. However, it will only work a couple times. These microbes, they love lactose. Lactose does not exist in plant milks. It’s in dairy milk. So you have to return them to real milk in order to keep them alive.

[00:09:24] So if you’re a vegan, that’s not going to make you very happy probably. But if you’re just having issues digesting dairy and you find that you still need to go to these plant milks, then that’s something you could work with. However, you should, if you’re not vegan, give kefir a try for digestibility.

[00:09:46] These microbes will’ve broken down that lactose, created all this wonderful gut flora that will probably be very easy to digest in comparison So if you’re gonna do a heat treatment on the [00:10:00] milk from home, that’s the only time during this process of making milk kefir that you will need a thermometer. If you use a thermometer for any of your ferments, and I hope you do for making some other things, other cheeses you’re going to need to keep it calibrated.

[00:10:17] And this is one of those things that I also say a lot because it’s easy to forget. So to calibrate these simple dial thermometers, which are my favorite go-to, or any other fancy thermometer, all you need to do is have a glass of ice with a little bit of water in it. Stick that guy in there. Give it a few moments.

[00:10:38] Don’t hold the stem of the thermometer, ’cause your hands will warm it up, too, and read the temperature. If it’s 33, 34, 32 even, you’re good to go. If not, there’s a little nut on the back that you can adjust and make it read correctly. So that’s the only time during this that you [00:11:00] need to worry about heat treatments.

[00:11:02] So let’s get right into draining this. Now, to drain it, you’re going to need a sieve. This is a nylon mesh sieve, and this is a high-quality stainless steel sieve. Either works great. You will read in some books or websites that you have to use fabric, excuse me, a non-metallic sieve. But a good quality stainless works just fine.

[00:11:28] You just don’t want anything that’s poor, low-quality stainless because it will allow for acids from the kefir to erode the metals and leach metals potentially into your product. So this fermented for almost 24 hours, a little more like 18, at room temperature. So what does room temperature mean?

[00:11:52] Roughly between 65 and 75 Fahrenheit. The warmer it is, the faster it will ferment. But that [00:12:00] isn’t necessarily what you want, depending on your timeframe. So the grains are mixed in here now, ’cause I sloshed this around a little bit, so we need to get them out of there. You could just eat them, but then how are you going to start your next ferment?

[00:12:14] So I’m just gonna pour that right in there. It’s nice and thick because I did chill it.

[00:12:22] And get a little spoon, and stir it a bit. You don’t wanna mash it, ’cause you’ll kill, you’ll smush up your little grains. However, if you are trying to get some grains to share with your friends I will be doing that when I start, if we do start ever appearing live again in person, be sharing kefir grains with some of my attendees.

[00:12:47] But then you can break a grain in pa- in half, in quarters, whatever. It doesn’t take much to grow a new one. They’re going to keep growing, as I said, to whatever size they’re comfortable being. These [00:13:00] grains I’m working with from Gem Cultures, they’re roughly the size of a marble, and they’ve gotten a little bit bigger over time, but not much.

[00:13:09] So you can see I’ve got my grains here, and now you have the choice of rinsing them under cool, non-chlorinated water and returning them to the jar, or if you’re making your kefir regularly, you can just put them right back in there, which is what I’m gonna do right now.

[00:13:30] If you are using store-bought or chilled milk, you don’t need to warm it up ahead of time. You can just pour it in there cold, won’t hurt these guys at all, and set it on your counter. So that removes another step. This batch I made yesterday that you’re seeing now was from heat-treated goat milk, but I’m gonna use this morning’s goat milk that I milked out to make a cheese for us today c- from kefir.

[00:13:59] So [00:14:00] I’m using the cow milk now. So I’m gonna put this lid on, not hand tight, just under hand tight. That way, if there’s a little bit too much carbon dioxide made, it’ll have a way to get out. I’ve never had it be a problem if I forget and tighten it all the way, unless you forget your jar of fermenting, and that’s no good for anybody.

[00:14:20] So I’ll just set this down and let it ferment. So now we’ve got this wonderful, this kind of thick liquid. Very, looks very much like buttermilk. You may ask, “What is the difference between kefir and buttermilk?” Probiotics. Not just what they fermented them, what microbes fermented them, but the resulting byproducts of probiotics, and you should know that not all yogurts are probiotic either.

[00:14:46] So there’s some variation in that. What we do here at our house is we now then subdivide this kefir into pint jars, two half-pint jars, and we have about [00:15:00] three days, four days’ worth, then, of little grab-and-go containers of kefir. Some of them I’ll flavor, some I won’t. Pour that in there. We’re gonna save some for our cheese-making.

[00:15:12] And one in here.

[00:15:21] Actually, I did not save enough there, did I? So of course I’m out there For flavoring, which is completely optional, but it’s delicious with a little bit of real vanilla extract. If you’re off of sugar, like we are, we don’t eat much added sugar here at Felia Farm. So when you add vanilla to your kefir, it’s such a treat.

[00:15:47] It’s literally like a milkshake, unless you have a high sugar you’re really into a lot of sugar. So I don’t measure for this, I just add whatever I feel like, or whatever comes out. So I’ll [00:16:00] flavor a few of them, and it’s very easy in your fridge to see which ones were flavored. And then another great thing to add is a few- fruit puree.

[00:16:08] So these are some organic strawberries that I simmered for a while, and then just pulverized in my little immersion blender. And then I put a lid on that, but I’m gonna drink it, actually, and add that to flavor. If you have a family that’s getting used to not having so much sugar, adding fruits and things is a way to add some more sweetness but get them off of the sugar.

[00:16:38] Which is a process that you owe yourself some time to do. All right, so here is a picture of what the kefir is going to look like in about five or six hours. So k- if you can see there, the grains are floating on the top. When you first put them in, they’re at the bottom, but as they start [00:17:00] reactivating in the, the presence of all this food for them, they start making that carbon dioxide, and they float to the top.

[00:17:09] This means the kefir is now in an exponential growth phase. Or a… Let’s just think of it as they’re working really well. So if you get some grains and they’ve been transported, shipped to you given to you, you need to watch for that. If they don’t reactivate quickly, you’re gonna wanna feed them more regularly for a few days until you see that activity increase.

[00:17:35] They may have gone into a bit of a coma, if you will, during transport or storage. On that note, you should make your kefir at least once a week to keep these guys well-fed. If you need to travel or take a break for a few weeks, then what I would do is do what I just did, but then put this jar directly in the [00:18:00] fridge.

[00:18:00] Don’t leave it out to ferment. That will slow the whole process, ’cause as I said earlier, these grains will continue to ferment at refrigeration temperatures. So this will give them that extension of work time, so it gives you a time to take a break. There are other methods, and I do cover them in the book, for freezing grains, dehydrating grains.

[00:18:24] All those things. It’s a little hard on them, and they can take a little longer to recover from that. Similarly, if you purchase grains that have been dehydrated or frozen, they might not be quite themselves for some time. Now, the fun goes p- oh, this is one thing I love to add. This is turmeric combined with black pepper, and I just combine it ahead of time in my jar, and then I can add a teaspoon to the kefir.

[00:18:53] Not with the vanilla in there. But it’s a wonderful anti-inflammatory then, [00:19:00] and the kefir itself is going to have some of those properties. So it’s a win-win, and it’s so pretty. Golden milk, golden kefir. My husband likes to add chai, so this is powdered chai tea from Blue Lotus, which is a great brand also.

[00:19:17] Also an Oregon company. And then Vern, my husband, does something really odd to me. He actually adds unflavored kefir to his hot tea. If you like a little lemon in your tea, it makes sense. So he likes dairy and lemon in his tea, so he just skips all that and adds some kefir. The next fun thing you can do is make cheese.

[00:19:41] So these ma- microbes that make kefir are in the mesophilic category. What? What did I just say? Mesophilic. That means meso means middle, philic, love. Middle lovers. Hey, should, I should be going this way for you guys, huh? Reading [00:20:00] it backwards. So mesophilic microbes will live well between about 70 and 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

[00:20:08] So this fresh kefir, not the grains, but the kefir itself, can be a wonderful inoculant for making any cheese that ferments at those temperatures. So queso fresco if you’re using a cultured, making a cultured version, fromage blanc, chèvre, and those are all the same types of cultures. I have recipes in this book, obviously, for all those cheeses, or many of them.

[00:20:37] But any other cheeses and recipes, if it calls for a mesophilic culture, you can use your fresh kefir. So you can have multiple products resulting from these wonderful grains. So it’s a great way to keep using it. So this is almost a half gallon of fresh, warm still goat milk. So it ca- I milked it out [00:21:00] this morning from our lovely ladies.

[00:21:02] Which you can see live on our webcam when it’s on, if you’d like. So you don’t need to chill it. It’s at the perfect temperature right now. And all I’m going to do is add in about an eighth to a quarter cup of the fresh kefir Then a tiny drop of liquid rennet. Now you can use a half drop or a whole drop.

[00:21:25] It’s up to you. It’s going to curdle, but be careful. If it’s more than a drop, it’s gonna be too thick for this type of a, a process. And guess what? If I wanted to right now, I could add lactase drops, and then I would have a lactose-free fresh cheese. I think I’ll do it. There we go. By the time this is done fermenting, the lactase enzyme will have helped finish off any lactose that was left in there.

[00:21:56] Give it a good stir. And I’m just gonna set [00:22:00] it on the counter. And tomorrow morning it should be ready to drain. I’ll use a cheesecloth for that, and put it over a colander and drain it. Here is a batch I made yesterday, and to this I added… I caramelized a whole head of garlic, and we’ve used some of this by, already though on pizza last night.

[00:22:26] And then I added the caramelized garlic and the oil I- the olive oil right into this. Some salt, I used some Himalayan sea salt. And talk about a great immune support and health support. The garlic will not only help you, your health also, but if, when you’re watching this, we are still in the social distancing stage, it’ll help keep the distance too

[00:22:54] So there is all those things you can do with it. Let’s try [00:23:00] this. I wish you guys were here so I could pass around little cups of this.

[00:23:08] It’s amazing. So good Turmeric. I told you I added turmeric. In the slide, you’ll see turmeric and bee pollen. That’s a great with- combination. And here’s a picture of a cheese that formed it fully in the cheesecloth, drained it a little longer than I did for what you saw there, and then covered it with some fresh chopped chives.

[00:23:33] Lots of options there for those things. So cheese, cheeses you can make, the fresh kefir. Again, so much health benefit to this. So I hope that I have helped you there with wanting to try kefir, and that you’ll consider pre-ordering my book. Thank you so much, and enjoy your [00:24:00] dairy.