*note: if you haven’t had Milk Kefir before, or maybe even haven’t had it in a long time very likely the first few times you try it you will have a bellyache of some sort. I attribute this to Kefir populating your gut – a good thing. It will go away after a few days of drinking it.
I hate it when I go to find a recipe and the poster babbles about this n that and you can’t find the recipe without wading through a year and a half of gab. So, I’ll start with the how-to, and then get back to soap boxing.
1. Get kefir grains, from somebody or somewhere. At some point I’ll figure out how to culture from scratch, but not today.
2. Get TWO glass jars of the same size – either 1/2 gallon or gallon. Get a cotton cloth or paper towel, and a rubber band.
3. Pour milk in with the kefir grains. Leave about 3 inches, because it’ll expand and overflow if you fill it too high. Don’t. (Note: I just use factory milk, whole milk. We initially used raw milk, but I honestly couldn’t tell the difference – and I’m sensitive enough where I could tell a difference if it were big enough. The kefir culture is just so powerful that they replace the goodness enough, or at least alleviate the badness).
4. Cover with cloth or paper towel, and seal with rubber band. Wait, until the whey starts to separate from the top stuff. I prefer mine REALLY separated, partly because I’ve grown to like the tart taste, but also because that way I know the kefir has really gone to town on it, and all the lactose is gone.
5. That’s it. Essentially, you’ll repeat this process over and over again, transferring the kefir grains to each new batch, indefinitely. BUT… the trick comes by transferring. You can definitely do it the hard way, or the easy way. The hard way is to get messy, and use your hands. The easy way …
I. Get the items pictures, especially the strainer ladle.
II. Get a metal mixing bowl (*metal is ok for a bit, just don’t leave it in there overnight or it’ll kill the kefir). Hold the ladle over the bowl, and pour as much kefir as the ladle can hold into the ladle. Use the spoon to gently squash it against the sides of the strainer ladle, until the gummy grains are left (don’t push too hard, or you’ll force the grains through). If you can, pour the whey juice first, and use that to soften and sluice the kefir globs. Whenever you find grains, dump them into the second jar. Repeat until you’ve captured all the grains.
III. I like to wash each jar with hot water after dumping it. Then, use the giant funnel to dump the now-de-grained mixing bowl back into the jar.
IV. Very important (I think, anyways): use the immersion blender+ whisk to whip the kefir, otherwise it’s chunky slippery ick. Feels like boogers. Once you blend it a bit, it’s a beautiful sleek drink. If you REALLY like the tart, you can leave it sit on the counter overnight. Yum.
V. The grains that you dumped in the second jar: obviously, add more milk, and go to step #1 – repeat indefinitely!
VI. Then, if you’re a guy, wash everything or your wife will get annoyed. If you’re not, you didn’t need me to tell you to wash. But just in case there are guys reading this.
Note that you could mix berries etc in it, but if you just drink it like a man, I guarantee you’ll start to love it soon. Don’t forget; you’ll almost certainly have an upset stomach for a few days as the kefir colonizes your gut, all good.
*Climbs on soap box*
I was saying about how “probiotics” are so marketed – they’re GOOD for you, right?
As with most other health products, The hype around probiotics is largely random and lopsided – has one might expect when the source is an industry that prioritizes profit over people.
Think about what probiotics are: they’re bacteria. Good bacteria is good when it is helpful; it’s bad but it’s not. It’s helpful if it’s what you need – bacteria that is excellent at processing plant toxins may not be that helpful for people who have systems that are strong in that area, etc.
Long discussion short: not all good bacteria are created equal: although most bacteria can digest many foods, some digest certain foods better than others.
Think about what you just did when you made kefir: you literally fed bacteria a food they liked, and that bacteria ousted other competitor bacteria, such that you can leave the stuff on the counter overnight no problem (which is why you can leave raw milk out ~indefinitely – it never goes bad, it just concentrates it’s cultures). But the point is that you cultivated a certain kind of bacteria that is optimized for milk, dairy. How do we know this? Because it literally ate dairy! Not all bacteria grow well on dairy. This does – and your starter gave it enough of a head start that it easily outstripped and starved (and even ate) the competition. In this case, the competition is bad – bacteria that’s not optimized for dairy, but just opportunistic when it comes across the milk on your counter.
The point is this: kefir is like growing a living garden. It’s a dairy garden. You then take that garden, and plant it in your gut, which, as it successfully takes root in your gut, eats the dairy that you’ve eaten, just like it did on the countertop.
That’s waaay better than taking a relatively random bacteria strain found in someone’s gut somewhere – much more reliable and targeted to continuously feed your gut with a living, breathing bacteria garden that’s living in the same environment you are.
In other words, thinking about what you’re eating, and culturing bacteria that are optimized for that. That’s exactly why I chose milk kefir over kombucha – I realized that I need diary bacteria more than whatever-bacteria that kombucha has (kombucha is also high in histamine, which is great for kids, but not so much for someone in a tight gut spot).
Tldr; I don’t but probiotics, and just because something has “probiotics” (e.g. factory yogurt, etc) doesn’t necessarily mean it’s all that great for you. You want something that’s tuned to you – grown in your environment, eating things that you eat.
