An easy guide to make homemade kefir
This is an easy guide to kefir and how to make it at home. Kefir is an easy and delicious way to boost your gut health.
Gut health and Kefir
A healthy gut is incredibly important. Food passes through the gut, the nutrients from the food then pass to all of the organs of the body.
When your gut is healthy you will find that your whole body just functions better. Your skin will be better, you will have more energy and feel better all round. The most effective way to improve your gut health is to take probiotics everyday.
Probiotics come in many different guises, the most familiar would be yoghurt. A probiotic will restore the good bacteria in your gut, it will then work more efficiently, taking the nutrients from the food to your body.
Types of probiotics
Any fermented food will contain probiotics as does raw milk. There are different sorts of fermented food yoghurt, yoghurt drinks, sauerkraut, kefir, water kefir and sourdoughs
Kefir is different to most other probiotics. It will actually grow inside the gut and increase your guts good bacteria. Other probiotics live inside the gut and help the gut function, but will not grow and will die off. This is why kefir is so much better as it doesn’t leave the body. It has so many more different types of bacteria compared to other probiotics. This makes it a stronger defence in your gut.
The other great thing about Kefir is that it is very difficult for antibiotics and other medications to kill it. Unlike other gut bacteria that is killed off by antibiotics.
Culture of kefir
Kefir thought history
Kefir has been around for centuries and has many different stories about where it came from. Most ancient traditions say that it was a gift from god. Whatever your beliefs, it doesn’t change the fact that it is incredibly good for you and incredibly easy to make.
Kefir is a very simple thing to make and is really difficult to mess up. All you need is milk and kefir grains.
Kefir grains aren’t really a ‘grain’. They are a living organism that grows and turns your milk into the kefir drink.
Kefir is like a tart natural yoghurt flavour and has a slightly tingly fizz to it. This easy guide to making homemade Kefir will take you step by step.
How do you make kefir?
- Take 1 tbsp kefir grains
- Add to 1 cup of whole milk
- Ferment for 24-48 hour depending on how warm your house is.
- A warmer house will ferment faster
- Strain, drink and replenish milk to the grains
Daily care
All you need to do is add the kefir grains to the milk in a jar. Screw the lid on loosely and leave for 36-48 hours. Kefir doesn’t need to be refrigerated whilst it is fermenting unless you want a ‘holiday’ from making kefir. If you don’t want kefir for a few days, you can take a holiday. Just strain and add milk as usual and store in the fridge for up to a week. This slows down the ferment process.
After your holiday remove from the fridge, strain and feed with milk as before. You should be back to making kefir as before. Sometimes it takes a little longer to get the process going again as the grains need to wake up. This is normal and it will be fine in a couple of days. I store my kefir in my pantry or on my work surface in the kitchen. It depends on how warm my house is. A pantry is a great place to keep your ferments in the summer as they are cooler. This will therefore keep the kefir from over fermenting and becoming too sour.
Other resources
If you would like more information on building a pantry, I have written a post on building a pantry from scratch.
The ratio is, as a guide, 1 tablespoon of grains to 1 cup of whole milk. The more grains you add to the milk, the quicker it will ferment. A lot of people get confused, when the whey separates. They think the kefir is spoiled. It is a completely normal thing to happen. When you stir it back together, it will return to a thick, yoghurt drink consistency.
After it has finished fermenting, just strain the grains out of the kefir drink. Then, add to fresh milk starting the process again.
You can drink the kefir as it is or add it to smoothies. I have even made ice lollies and pop. There are so many things to do with kefir, cheese, butter dips and so much more. I will be adding some recipes to make with kefir soon. For now I thought it best to learn the basics of making the kefir.
Kefir grains are easy to get hold of online, like these ones from Amazon
You can get some from a friend who grows Kefir. They will grow, until you will be wanting to give them away.
I hope you will give it a go growing your own. It’s a great thing to get the children involved in. They will enjoy watching them grow and it gets them excited about drinking something that’s good for it.
Speak to you soon
Sam x
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