Kefir

Has anyone here made Kefir? How do I get started? I am interested in making this because it sounds tasty and has good health benefits. Also sounds like you can make it to 1-2% alcohol if you make it traditionally.

It is basically a quickly fermented milk/yogurt drink that uses "Kefir Grains" for inoculation. The grains are a cauliflower looking bunch of yeast and bacteria. I am not sure where to get them.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kefir

Dr Weil On Kefir

How To Make Kefir

Kefir Starter Kits


Hope this helps out

There is a bunch of info on some of these health food / tree hugger sites

-Jason

if ur still hunting for how to do it, i can guide you through it.
look up dom's kefir site, he's quite knowledgeable on the subject.

u can make all kinds of alcoholic drinks btw and cheese and etc with it....

I make kefir. I got mine from some guy on craig's list who lives 20 minutes from me. I'm currently low on grains, having used them up on experiments, but once I get some excess I'd be happy to dry them out and mail them to you.

I am wondering if a lambic which had a kefir based starter pitched in it would be tasty? Too much lactobacillus? Kefir loses some of its spunk if you leave it for too long in a liquid other than milk, so I was imagining that the grains would be used to create the starter but removed before pitching.

This site has a long list of people who've signed up as kefir grain donators, listed by region. I used it to find my grains, and I think found the website through some other kefir forum. Kefir grains

I used to have an active Kefir culture, but managed to let it die when I was getting married and moving. What's amazing is that I've been able to continue to buy Kefir by the quart at my local market in the meantime, so I've kept consuming it, though I've definitely wanted to get back to regularly culturing my own - it's cheaper and I can customize the flavor. Sometimes, the flavors I want just aren't available at the store, and I realize I could be doing this again myself!

I just used the excellent link above to request a new culture from a local, I'll definitely keep y'all updated on the progress of my culturing.

I just make enough to drink each day with breakfast. The grains multiply and I simply eat them when I get too many. The missus hates the smell and taste so it's just me...

find yourself an ant nest
Dig it up
Collect the eggs

Squish 'em into raw milk.

You read that correctly Mush the ant eggs directly into the raw milk.
Set the milk aside with a cheesecloth cover.

OK you don't believe me I can tell already.
I mean who is going to believe some guy who wants you to dig up an ant nest. Sounds like Snipe hunt right:


http://www.ekoses.com/ekolojikyasam...ID=147383&iabspos=1&vjob=vkwd,KARINCA TOPRAĞI


and
http://www.annemmutfakta.tv/video/h...nca-yumurtasindan-yogurt-mayalamak/index.html
you can step around the "license key" issue by using REAL PLAYER downloader or Download Helper and saving it as a VLC file

You can also plug the web site's URL into Google Translate It's turkish.

Interesting how a bunch os peasants in turkey know this and pretty much no one here does

Yeah, water kefir would probably be the best for doing up a lambic...not milk kefir, which tends to get weird in anything other than dairy. I want to get some water kefir and try this recipe for ginger beer: Ginger Beer Kefir

Just get your grains off ebay or craigs list. All the commercial sites selling kefir charge several times more than the bay....and really, originally, the spirit of kefir was to spread the grains around amongst people, not profit off them.

I was making it with raw milk for almost a year. I finally called it quits when a bug got in it.I did feel good when i was drinking it but it tasted pretty awfull on its own, almost couldnt hack it down, plus i was getting lazy and not going through the effort of making smoothies out of it,was better this way. They can give you some nasty nasty gas especially if you eat the grains, good for you yes nasty nasty nasty gas very possible.

If you let it ferment with the grains, do a second ferment off the grains, then add a little bit of milk back into it its a lot better. Make sure you do not ferment it sealed. The yeast takes off and causes the 'internal fermentation'.

When you strain it from the whey, the 'ricotta' type cheese is really good. The whey is what is really bitter. The whey can be used to ferment veggies too. Be careful lacto fermenting in the same room as the homebrew.... Just found out the hard way with my first AG down the drain .

We are surrounded by a new swarm of fire ant beds. Come help yourself... #cringe

Hi There this is my Kefir Beer brewing.

The basic recipe comes from http://www.traditionaltx.us/KefirBeer.pdf. My first one came out amazing.

No fancy sterilizing techniques. The colony of yeasts and bacteria are specially protective in ways that isolated single yeasts just aren't.

I doubt this batch will be as good, I kind of got stuck wanting to try a heather ale but was afraid to eliminate the hops like the traditional version.

I can not imagine beer brewing being any simpler. I wish some other folks would join this experiment! I have the book "Sacred and Healing Herbal Beers".

I love the idea of a multi yeast and bacteria brew with a simple one malt and hop profile instead of the standard reverse practice of one yeast and multi malt and hop additions!

I want to start experimenting with other Herbal Kefir Beers. The reason I am afraid to brew without hops is that I feel the hops attenuate the alcohol producing yeasts of the kefir colony -- of which I do not know how many or which ones they are?

Would someone be willing to guess rom this list:


Bacteria
Species Lactobacillus
Lb. acidophilus
Lb. brevis [Possibly now Lb. kefiri]
Lb. casei subsp. casei
Lb. casei subsp. rhamnosus
Lb. paracasei subsp. paracasei
Lb. fermentum
Lb. cellobiosus
Lb. delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus
Lb. delbrueckii subsp. lactis
Lb. fructivorans
Lb. helveticus subsp. lactis
Lb. hilgardii
Lb. helveticus
Lb. kefiri
Lb. kefiranofaciens subsp. kefirgranum
Lb. kefiranofaciens subsp. kefiranofaciens
Lb. parakefiri
Lb. plantarum

Species Streptococcus
St. thermophilus
St. paracitrovorus

Species Lactococcus
Lc. lactis subsp. lactis
Lc. lactis subsp. lactis biovar. diacetylactis
Lc. lactis subsp. cremoris

Species Enterococcus
Ent. durans

Species Leuconostoc
Leuc. mesenteroides subsp. cremoris
Leuc. mesenteroides subsp. mesenteroides
Leuc. dextranicum

Yeasts
Dekkera anomala / Brettanomyces anomalus
Kluyveromyces marxianus / Candida kefyr
Pichia fermentans / C. firmetaria
Yarrowia lipolytica / C. lipolytica
Debaryomyces hansenii / C. famata
Deb. [Schwanniomyces] occidentalis
Issatchenkia orientalis / C. krusei
Galactomyces geotrichum / Geotrichum candidum
C. friedrichii
C. rancens
C. tenuis
C. humilis
C. inconspicua
C. maris
Cryptococcus humicolus
Kluyveromyces lactis var. lactis
Kluyv. bulgaricus
Kluyv. lodderae
Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Sacc. subsp. torulopsis holmii
Sacc. pastorianus
Sacc. humaticus
Sacc. unisporus
Sacc. exiguus
Sacc. turicensis sp. nov
Torulaspora delbrueckii
Zygosaccharomyces rouxii

Acetobacter
Acetobacter aceti
Acetobacter rasens