Sufficient Self Forum

BBH how do you expect me to keep up?
I am just getting to fermenting girl and you already have a designated closet?
ARGH!

Edited to add my little on and DH are the only ones who will drink kefir but I buy the sweetened stuff or I don't think she (or anyone else here) would touch it with a 10 foot pole. Are you drinking it straight up?

Last edited by Dace (08/18/2009 6:27 pm)

Love it! Too funny

By the way, my little princess loves smoothies but only the ones from Jamba Juice. Why you ask when mommy can put in anything that her little her little heart desires? Mommy's smoothies have chunks.

Can you explain Kefir and how you use it? Where would I get it? It sounds cool. Lots of power outages here all the time...

big brown horse wrote:

I finally got some kefir grains today!  I am so happy, I hope you don't mind if I make a thread just for kefir so it will be easy to reference.

I got my grains, they look like thumb sized white gooey brains.  She told me to add raw milk (which I finally found a source for in the next town over ) and wait 24 hours.

Then from what I understood, I fish out the grains, drink the kefir and add milk to the grains to start over.  Once the grains multiply I can seperate them and pass on to someone else.

My jar of kefir has a coffee filter secured with a rubber band and is being stored in the "fermenting closet" aka stinky closet.

Does this sound about right?

Do the grains need to be rinsed with filtered water before I add more fresh milk?

I also read that if you need to take a break on fermenting the grains you can rinse them off and store them in filtered water in the fridge.

I am sooo excited that I found someone who had the grains! 

She also had kombucha starter with the scoby for me too!!   But that is another thread...sorta.  I read that you can somehow combine the two, when I figure out how to post a link, I will.

BBH, I'm no expert by any means, but I have been taking care of a jar of kefir for about 2 years now, so here are my thoughts.

I do not rinse my grains (except under special circumstances, to follow).  I pour the kefir with grains into a bowl, and use my (clean) fingers to fish out the grains.  They go back into the jar, and are covered with milk again.  The finished kefir goes in another jar, tightly lidded, and is left on the counter to use as needed.  I change to a clean jar only every 4 or 5 days, though others might do so more, or less, frequently.

Rinsing grains:  I do this only before I dehydrate them, which I do before sending them on to someone else (much easier than wet grains), and to keep a back up lot for myself (I've just started doing this;  I'll dry a new lot every 6 months or so).

To take a break with my grains I cover them with about twice as much milk as usual, cover tightly, and put them in the fridge.  Just recently we were away for 10 days;  I had a quart of 1/2 & 1/2, which would have gone off if left, so I put the grains in there.  Got back home to find the grains were just fine, and the 1/2 & 1/2 had turned into a very pleasant, though semi-liquid, sour cream.

I've posted these before, but maybe it is worthwhile to do so again.  Anyone interested in the many aspects of kefir should take a look at these sites.  This guy's writing annoys me, but he has a lot of useful information to impart.

http://users.chariot.net.au/~dna/Makekefir.html
http://users.chariot.net.au/~dna/kefirpage.html

Congratulations on finding the grains!


ETA:  Raw milk is lovely, and desirable for many reasons, but if you don't have a source for it (as I don't ) don't despair.  I use organic supermarket milk, and it works just fine.  I'm sure regular supermarket milk would also work well.  Use what you have, and don't give up if "straight from the cow" (or goat) isn't possible for you.  The little kefir beasties will boost your health even so.

Last edited by ORChick (08/19/2009 1:31 am)

BBH, let me know if/when you reach the point of wanting to dehydrate some grains.  I kept a record of how it went -- because I wasn't really sure that it would work .  However, freemotion's enormously prolific grains started as some dehydrated grains that I sent her