❧
Yesterday afternoon was a ring-pass-me-not in regard to making my own kefir. I drank both some water kefir and milk kefir I made myself. That is to say, I put all the raw materials together and observed what happened. I didn't actually do anything else to "make" kefir. It was the first non-commercial kefir I've tasted. All in all, it tasted okay. The water kefir may have tasted a bit better.
Presently, I'm brewing up my third batch of water kefir. It's the first batch that I'm drinking. It had sit out on the counter in the ambient room temperature of my kitchen after "resting" in the refrigerator Thursday night. I don't know exactly why I decided to rest it, but I'm resting the second batch while the third batch is fermenting while sitting on the counter.
The kefir grains I got from my friend in Texas (I sort of assume she's my friend because she acts friendly) doubled in number. It is exactly what I wanted to happen. I encouraged it to happen in my hapless way of doing what I did. I want to experiment some with the water kefir, but I don't wanna risk my healthy granules to do it.
The first experiment will be to put part of a calcium capsule in the fermenting sugar water. The current method for getting calcium to get into the fermenting water is to put half an eggshell in it, and the lactic acid produced by the fermentation dissolves the calcium from off the exterior of the eggshell. I don't see why a capsule of the calcium capsules I get by prescription wouldn't work just fine.
My water kefir from the first batch has some baby grains in it from the fermentation. Since I have granules to spare now I left them in the kefir to drink them. I don't know if they will survive the stomach acid, the bile the breaks the food down I eat. That's an area I'll have to research. I think I read somewhere the probiotics are acid resistant, but I don't know for sure. The idea of drinking them is that if they survive they will eat and convert the sugar in my stomach and as they pass through my gut to my colon.
The milk kefir is a whole new deal. I received the milk kefir grains from Michigan by Priority Mail on Thursday and immediately put them into a pint jar that was three-quarter filled with homogenized whole milk, purportedly "organic". That is all that needed to happen. Skim milk works too. Just put the kefir grains in the milk and wait for it to ferment. It did just that.
Eventually, as I understand the process, at this early stage, the fermenting milk will separate into curds and whey. I didn't want that to happen yet, because that might make the kefir grains more difficult to strain from the fermented milk. I chose to not wait for that separation to occur, but to strain the grains from the milk after 12-15 hours.
I was a little nervous when I went to do that because of my inexperience with this whole kefir deal, but it went well. The milk kefir grains look a lot different than the water kefir grains. The water kefir grains look more like cooked white rice, and they're separate from each other. The milk kefir grains are like globs of white cauliflower and drip.
After I strained the mother culture globs from the fermented milk I decided to taste it right away. The milk had thickened considerably. It definitely had a tart taste without being really sour. I guess there was a cup of milk kefir after I poured it into a plastic cup. I covered it to keep the bugs out of it, and set it aside to put on my oatmeal this morning.
When I went to do that I discovered that overnight it had gotten a lot thicker. Since I retrieved as many of the milk kefir grains as I saw from it, I knew there were lots of baby kefir grains left in the fermented milk, and it kept fermenting all night long. I put a generous amount on my oatmeal after it had cooled down from cooking it, and it had gone from tart last night to distinguishably sour this morning.
In a way, I was delighted. It tasted like sour cream. I love sour cream. I'm looking forward to mixing some with the dried onion soup to make it into a dip. It is different than commercial sour cream, however, it is alive. I'm wondering if mixing the dried onion soup mix in it will harm the bacteria. It will still taste good either way.
As soon as I strained the milk kefir granules out of the fermented milk I immediately started another culture. Milk kefir doesn't take but about half as long to make as water kefir. It will be ready to consume by late this afternoon if not earlier. The process with either water or milk kefir can be slowed down considerably by putting it in the refrigerator.
I have to work out a schedule of some sort. It's more likely that I'll have more than I want or need by the looks of things. If I have more than I want I can either give it away or feed the excess milk kefir to my brother's dogs. It will be healthy for them too. The extra water kefir can be fed to my plants. At least, I think it can. The probiotics might break down the soil for the plant roots to get additional nutrition. I will pick out a plant to try it on. If it works I'll go from there.
❦
