Make Creamy Cold-Fermented Kefir at Home

I like to make kefir at home. You can find many resources that teach you how to make kefir, but I know of a way to do it that is a little different. This article assumes that you at least know the basics of kefir making. I’ll go over how I do it, but I’m assuming you know all about how long to ferment and what a properly fermented batch looks like.

Several years ago when I first started making kefir, my kefir grains multiplied to the point where I could ferment a gallon of milk at a time. The problem here is that since I’m the only one who actually drank it at the time, and it only takes 24-48 hours to ferment, I couldn’t drink it fast enough. The other problem I had came in the summer. Kefir ferments much faster when it’s hot. I lived in an apartment where it easily reached 80-85 degrees Fahrenheit, and I usually went to my parents’ lake house on summer weekends, so I didn’t want to leave just a gallon of explosively fermented milk. in the kitchen. We actually turned off the window air conditioners when we went away for the weekend and it was a second floor apartment so the temperatures actually went up a lot higher. I decided to try a cold ferment. The cooler the temperature, the slower the ferment. Now, you can mix this however you like. You can start it at room temperature to get it working and then put it in the fridge when it has reached the right “done point” and leave it there where it will continue to ferment but at a much slower rate. You can take your time getting to it and you don’t have to worry about it exploding or turning into cheese.

Let’s go over the first part of the ferment, which is the basics of making kefir. Wash your hands well before continuing.

First you need kefir grains, which are small white rubbery texture dyes that look like cauliflower blossoms. Nobody has been able to find out where the first ones came from or by what mechanism they were first created. They get bigger and they fall off a little bit of the biggest part and then those parts in turn get bigger in the milk until they have pieces that fall off and they grow and it goes on and on and on. As far as is known, all kefir grains on earth come from the earliest batches in the Russo-Georgian region of the Caucasus Mountains, where Muslim tribes considered them a gift from God like the manna that fed the ancient Israelites in the desert even earlier. .

You also need milk. You can use any type of mammalian milk, but the most common are cow, goat, and sheep. I have personally made kefir with both cow and goat milk. I prefer the taste of goat milk to cow milk and I also like goat kefir better, but I make it in small batches due to the high cost of goat milk. To make a gallon, only use cow’s milk as long as you are okay with it and there are no allergies to bovine mammary secretions (milk). Where I live, I’m lucky enough to be able to get organic, grass-fed, I guess, creamy non-homogenized milk from Jersey cows, which is MUCH creamier and fattier than the more commonly available and waterier milk from Holstein cows. Unfortunately for most people, they get stuck with BGH-blended, homogenized Holstein milk from grain-fed cows. Hey, use what you got. Kefir will even make the milk safe to drink, but you can opt for organic milk from grass-fed cows.

You will need some bowls and tools. I prefer Pyrex style glass bowls and plastic ladle and strainer. You need plastic tools and not metal ones for all of this. Also, try to use glass containers, measuring cups, etc. I also use a Pyrex style quartz pouring container with a handle. I leave paper towels to catch any drips, but it’s not necessary. You want all your things to be clean. You also need containers to store the strained kefir. I use clean old plastic mayonnaise jars. They are made of food grade plastic. Use food grade plastics or glass. This one is optional but really adds to the ability to drink. A kitchen mixer or an electric hand mixer. You should also have at least two large gallon glass jars with snap-on lids and rubber gaskets. That’s what I use. You can use any glass jar or food-grade plastic jar. I recommend a large one to hold all your milk and grains in one container, but I suppose you can split it all into two smaller ones if the large one is too unwieldy for some reason. You will also need a large, wide-mouth funnel. This is also optional, but we’ll see where it comes in handy later.

Put all your things. All of this assuming you already have enough kefir grains to make this large amount and were already fermenting at least once to make a batch. You should have put it all together and fermented then chilled in the fridge to slow it down or start it at room temperature then chill it for a longer amount of time to allow your consumption to catch up. you’re fermenting or maybe you just wanted to take a break from making and drinking kefir for a while.

Take the jar that has been cold fermenting out of the fridge and carefully, on a towel spread out on a countertop, gently shake or swirl to mix in the curds, whey and any fat that may have separated a bit. You want it to be as free flowing as possible to pour into the strainer.

Attach your plastic strainer, which should have holes large enough to allow the fatty mixture to pass through, but not large enough to lose too many small grains in the kefir. If the holes are too small, you’ll be standing there with a strainer full of kefir that never drains. You may want to experiment with some, but they have to be plastic, not metal. The strainer should also be large enough that the rim of the strainer fits right over the rim of the bowl, so you don’t have to hold it constantly, and there is enough room under the strainer for any filtered milk to collect there.

Open the fermented jar carefully because there is carbon dioxide that you will want to escape. Hold the large jar of fermented kefir in both hands and slowly pour as much as you can into the strainer so it’s full. There may be some splashing and splashing as the grains and lumpy milk hit the lumpy milk. This is normal. Put down the jar and lift the strainer by the handle and gently rock or rock the strainer back and forth to encourage movement and the brewing process. If all goes well, you should have a strainer full of grains and a container full of kefir. Pour the beans into the strainer in the other bowl, or just keep them in the strainer, but for now place the strainer in that other bowl to keep everything straight and tidy.

The next part is optional, but if you don’t, your kefir will be lumpy and the clumpy, gritty texture will turn off a lot of people, especially kids. Also, this step will slow down or stop the tendency of the chilled strained kefir to separate into curds and whey. All you need to do to mix them up is give them a light shake or flip the container a few times, but still.

You can pour the strained kefir into a blender, but I prefer one of those handy electric hand blenders. Get a clean plate to put in between uses as I’m guessing all the effort up to this point needs to be repeated at least once and it will leak. Simply insert the hand blender into the bowl of strained kefir and blend a few times by pressing or pressing the button. You can wiggle the mixing end to make sure you get everything, but keep it submerged pretty well or you’ll end up with kefir all over the place. I know from experience. Now your kefir will have a delicious creamy and silky texture. You can add mango nectar or some other fruit juice or something at this point for flavor if you don’t like the taste of plain sweet and sour kefir. You can mix each container you are going to fill with a different flavoring. If you do, make sure you don’t overfill it with kefir and leave enough room for the flavor component AND the end of the mixer. Also, if mixing in a plastic bowl or container, be careful not to touch or rub the bottom with the mixing end. You don’t want plastic chips in your kefir. That’s why I prefer to mix it in a glass container.

I want to go on a little tangent here regarding flavor. Once in an Indian restaurant with an Indian colleague, we had a delicious Mango Lassi, which is an Indian fermented milk drink. It was pale yellow and delicious. It had a mango flavor. One day at the supermarket I found a Goya Mango Nectar. It comes in glass jars and is quite reasonable. It’s of Spanish origin, and unless they make a distinction, the added sweet component is sugar, not the toxic high-fructose corn syrup that plagues American-made sweetened beverages. The light bulb went on and I remembered the tasty mango lassi at the Indian restaurant. I bought a few bottles, took them home and mixed a bit with the kefir until I found the right concentration for my taste. It also had the amazing side effect of my 9 year old son drinking the healthy kefir drink, which he won’t touch himself. Chocolate syrup (organic from an organic market) is also a popular children’s flavoring for kefir.

Well, after the jars are filled with kefir and the strained container is empty or nearly empty, repeat the pouring, straining, and blending process for this batch. Once your jars are full, you can now finish. I have two large gallon jugs, one that was cleaned last time and one that I just emptied. If you only use one, now is the time to thoroughly clean the pitcher and dry it with paper towels. Your regular towels can have germs on them and you want to get rid of the chlorinated tap water. Then, place the wide-mouth funnel over the top and use the ladle to scoop the large mound of kefir grains out of the strainer and into the pitcher. When you’re done, pour a gallon of fresh milk over them, close it up, shake it a few times to inoculate the milk well, and then place it on the counter to start the new ferment. In about 24 hours, put it back in the back of the refrigerator for a week or several months, if necessary.

There you have it, delicious cold fermented kefir. It’s also worth noting that a lot of times when I prepare it this way, it gets loaded with little bubbles of carbon that really make it the champagne of milks.

Website design By BotEap.com

Add a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *