My Kefir grains arrived about a week back and I have been meddling with it and attempting to create a good (or at least acceptable) Kefir drink for me to enjoy. It has not been easy. Although the steps to make Kefir seemed easy enough – add milk to the Kefir grains, strain after 24 hours and add more milk to the Kefir grains and so on. But we must realize that without the proper utensils, you might find it rather difficult. Your strainer must be big enough or it will take hours to properly strain the Kefir out. The container where the Kefir is fermented must be air-tight or ants (or other insects) will invade your Kefir. Of course, it is recommended for the container to be glass.
Anyway, after a few tries, I managed to get a reasonably good tasting Milk Kefir. I was told that the type and quality of milk will also affect the taste of the Kefir. I am very tempted to use fresh milk to make my Kefir but it is a bother as fresh milk usually don’t keep well. UHT milk which I have been using all along seemed to be the best solution. I normally would make about 200ml of Milk Kefir per day and I drink it all. When the grains first arrived, I had to throw away the first few batches of Milk Kefir due to the grains being starved. The journey from Germany to Singapore took about 10 days, so I can understand that the Kefir grains may be stressed and may not produce the best of taste. And after the fourth batch, the resulting Milk Kefir was quite delicious. And now, the rather strong alcoholic aftertaste is very much reduced. You can hardly smell any alcohol when drinking. Yes, it is a bit sour but most fermented milk drinks are sour due to the lactic acid being created by the live cultures. Just that companies selling these drinks added sucrose or fructose to the drink, making it less tart and more appealing to consumers.Take for example Yakult. It tastes just like sugar water.
I normally ferment my Kefir for 24 hours. I like my Kefir to be more sour but due to the time contraints of work, family and friends, I usually stick to the evening when doing the straining of the Kefir. So it is normally 24 hours or 48 hours. 48 hours would probably make a Kefir which is overly sour and tart.
The view of the milk Kefir from the top.
Milk Kefir! Doesn’t it look delicious?
Can you see the Delta rivers? This is one of the indication that the thickness and consistency of the Milk Kefir is just right for drinking.
I can see that my Kefir grains are starting to grow. There are a few big ones which had growth quite significantly since I got them. It was very heartening to see my grains growing. All my hard work in caring for the grains seemed to pay off and soon, I can hopefully share the grains with others. If you guys are interested in Kefir, please give me a hoot and I will see whether I can spare some grains.
hey hey… great to see that your grains are growing well! and wow! u ferment for 24 hrs! omg… i think i dun like tat sour taste… so i usually ferment mine for at most 12 hrs… sometimes lesser… i like the taste ard 8 to 9 hrs…
in fact, it really depends on the milk. i have not tried the UHT that I have bought… decide to keep it and use it on my next batch of spare grains…so i m still using fresh milk… and this time, i m using Meiji Low fat milk (after finishing my magnolia). i realise that for low fat milk, it seems to ferment much faster (the milk becomes thicker with lots more whey and curds in a shorter time) as compared to the normal fresh milk.
Meiji Low Fat milk taste yummy too! but of coz, magnolia is still the best so far. haha! OK… so much for now… happy kefir-ing and happy new year to u!
Thanks. Glad to see them getting bigger in size. I was surprised to see one large piece of Kefir grains when I was straining the Kefir. But it looks a bit elongated to me. I had thought that it will grow into a circular shape like thing.
Hmmm….mine don’t have any curds at 8 hours. Looks like milk at that time. Curds will only form after 12 hours. However one of the reason why I ferment for 24 hours is because of work. And I like my cultured milk products sour. hehehehe.
I have tried that Meiji milk and yes, I agree that it taste very nice. If you remember, I had bought a pack of Kefir cultures and I used the Meiji milk for that Kefir. Tasted great! If I remember correctly, the Kefir made from Cultures actually tasted better. Lol.
Oh, yes Happy New Year to you too. How did you spend the New Year?
haha! different grains will grow to different sizes. very soon, you will have many grains of all shapes and sizes… and they will look more and more like blobs of cauliflowers… very cute.
i had finished my meiji milk last nite… so i will be shopping for new milk later… depending on my mood and what’s on sale in the supermarket later, i shall see which will be my next experiment target… haha!
new year eve was spent on bbq and counting down at home thereafter. lol! new year was spent slacking away at home too… getting a bit old to be out squeezing with the crowd. haha! what about you?
Cool. Hahahaha, just that I got this big mother grain which looks like some sort of elongated flying saucer. Yes, the rest looks a bit like cauliflowers. And I am happy that my grains are growing.
Tell me what do you do with the grains? You break them apart into smaller pieces or you just take the smaller grains out from the rest. I don’t feel comfortable with tearing the precious grains.
Lol, same here. Luckily, I have Sheng Siong, Shop N Save and NTUC all nearby! Now if only Giant and Cold Storage would open a store here….
I slept at 10pm. I woke at 10am. I slept again at 3pm. I woke at 6pm. I slept yet again at 11pm. Then I woke up and went to work. Baaaah!
oh no! dun tear the big grains to smaller ones… i read somewhere that it is not gd to break the big one to smaller ones… in fact, you are not supposed to even squeeze them. for me, i will usually place the spare grains ( a mixture of some big and small ones) into another flask with milk… that’s how i separate them.
i have ntuc, giant and sheng siong in my vicinity… but i realise ntuc often have some gd promotions here and there… i ended up buying meiji again… coz they r having promotions – cheaper + a small bottle of free choc milk. lol!
i still have not got enuf spare grains to separate…. once i have them, i will try out the UHT milk! hehe… i m so used to drinking kefir b4 i sleep now… and today, i forgot to take it out from the fridge to culture…. so no kefir for me today… sobz
Oh, hohoho, luckily I did not attempt to do that. I had thought that’s the way to divide up the grains. Hmm….I should re-read Dom’s site again. But what if one grains continue to grow till it becomes just too big?
Ya, NTUC seems to have more promotions, but the NTUC I have nearby is a bit further than the rest. And don’t forget Sheng Siong. I just bought a few packs of UHT milk from Sheng Siong which is about S$1.65 per pack (1 litre)! Cheap. Very very cheap. Much cheaper than NTUC. Of course, it was on offer. I think if they are not on offer, the price would be approximately the same.
I was also wondering whether you have tried using powdered milk? I read that it works just as well but when I check the ingredients of hose fortified powdered milk, it has a lot of other chemicals. I wonder what’s the effect these chemicals have on the Kefir grains.
Huh? You forgot to make kefir? How can? Lol
I prefer using nut milk, cashew in particular, and would like to achieve a more yoghurt like conisistency in my kefir. I know leaving it for longer thickens dairy milk – does it with nut milk too? How about using more grains in a smaller amount of milk? Any other ideas? and what do you say?
I have never tried any other milk before. I wonder how they taste.