From intensive reading about Kefir, I discovered that those commercial Kefir starters are not the real thing. Kefir starters are actually live cultures and yeasts they have extracted from the the Kefir grains to make into a freezed dried powder for sale. However, due to the complex nature of the actual Kefir grains, a large number of cultures and yeast are not easily extracted and thus, only a few strains of bacteria and yeast are in those commercial Kefir starters. Thus, the Kefir made by these Kefir starters do not have the full health benefits of the real thing. You will also discover that the kefir made by the commercial starters are less aromatic and do not taste as nice as the ones made by the Kefir grains. Furthermore from what I read, those commercial starters are not able to continuous grow and need to be replaced by another batch of powdered starter after a few batches. The real Kefir grains will be able to continuously grow if kept in a clean environment. This means that the Kefir grains can be used continuously to make kefir and will not lose it’s potency after a few batches. Yes, real Kefir grains is that strong and resilent. That’s the beauty of real Kefir grains. They will grow and grow and after a few batches of kefir, you will have more than enough Kefir grains to share with your friends.

However, the main problem I have now is to get the Kefir grains itself. I can’t find any local sources of kefir grains at all. I have asked in local forums about getting access to Kefir grains but nobody seems to know how or where.  It seems that Kefir is not popular in Singapore. Worst, I can’t find any stores in Singapore selling the actual Kefir as a drink. And surprisingly, a lot of Singaporeans once they see the actual Kefir grains itself, they get scared of drinking it. Imagine the look on one of my friend when I told her that yogurt is actually made from bacteria. I think I probably made her stop taking yogurt for life. But that is the truth. Just like Yogurt, Kefir is also made from bacteria and yeast eating the milk sugars from the milk to produce lactic acid. Nothing gross about it at all. Kimchee (which is reported to be one of the healthiest food) is also made from bacteria fermenting on cabbages and other vegetables. Nowadays everyone in Singapore love Korean food and they seem to love Kimchee too. If they don’t find Kimchee gross, they shouldn’t find Kefir or even Yogurt for that matter, gross at all.

For more information on Kefir Grains, please take a look at Dom’s Kefir Site.

Anyway, I have just made a batch of yogurt from bottled milk. It is UHT, so I guess it doesn’t taste really great. But, this is just an experiment only. I wanted to know why my yogurt always has this whey yogurt separation which looks rather ugly. Is it because I added too much milk powder or is it because I did not stir the starter yogurt in properly. Will give you guys an update tomorrow.

Oh and my Kefir starter I bought from ebay should be arriving this week. Once it arrives I will take a few photos for you guys to enjoy and make some kefir for me to enjoy.