Kefir

Created: April 27, 2020

Ingredients

1 L of whole and non-homo milk (preferably organic and grass fed). Do not use UTH milk
1 commercially available kefir starter package

Kitchen Equipment

Pot to warm up the milk
Food thermometer
1 L mason jar
Wooden spoon to mix

Kefir is cultured milk that contains not only bacterial culture like the yogurt, but also yeast. It is rich in lactic acid, which is very healing. Both the bacteria and the yeast are used to culture the milk and they break down the lactose. It can be make with kefir starters which are commercially available from many health food shops. You can also make kefir from grains, or once you make your first batch of kefir, you can use part of your batch as a starter for the next batch.

If you are not used to eat kefir, you might want to introduce it slow. Since kefir helps kill bad bacteria in the body, it might provoke a severe detoxification reaction. This is especially important for people that are not quite healthy or that have been recommended to follow the GAPS Nutritional Protocol.

In this article, I will show you how easy is to make kefir from a Starter package.

Start by pouring 1 Lt of milk in a pot and warm it up to 180 degrees. If you use raw milk, instead of pasteurized milk, you can skip this stage, but raw milk is not available in most places.

Use a thermometer to check the temperature of the milk. There are different kind of thermometers.

Once the temperature of the milk reaches 180F, remove the pot from the stove and let it cool down up to 110F. To make this process faster, you can put your pot inside a bigger pot with cold water.

Once the milk was at the right temperature (110F), add some milk to the 1L mason jar.

Add the content of 1 package of kefir starter and mix with a wooden spoon. Kefir doesn’t like steel spoons.

Mix with a wooden spoon, and then add the rest of the milk into the mason jar and mixed again.

Cover the mason jar loosely to allow oxygen it it. Oxygen help the yeast in the kefir grow. I usually cover it with cheese cloth. Leave it in the counter or on top of your fridge, at room temperature, for a minimum of 24 hours. After that, close the jar with a kid and store it in the fridge.

As I mentioned earlier, kefir can also be made with grains. The procedure to make it would be the same, and you only replace the kefir starter package with the grains. When you make kefir with grains, make sure you strain the grains out before drinking the kefir. Kefir grains must be stored in a glass jar inside the fridge. Make sure you put them in a jar covered with the best quality whole milk or cream that you can find. While you store them, make sure that you add to the jar fresh milk or cream once a week to keep the grains healthy.

You can also retain about 1/3 of the kefir you make, and use it as a starter to make more kefir, by using the same method explained here.