Kefir Recipes

Kefir Micro-Organism List

Kefir Instructions:

 

This is a very interesting culture which reliably produces yogurt of good quality with very simple operations.  It is astonishingly robust.  We have had this particular kefir since 2002, but it seems identical to one which we kept from 1982 to 1996 without problems.  

To make kefir using the traditional sieve method, just follow the instructions below.   1)    Put the grains in a glass jar with milk, not airtight (half a dessertspoon rounded of grains will culture 1pint of milk, use less or more accordingly).  The amount of grains you have been sent will cope with about a half pint of milk but it will soon grow to cope with more.

2)    Leave it around until it’s ready. Stir it often to see what consistency it has got to and when it is nice and thick and creamy, you are ready to go to the next step.

3)    Put it in the fridge until you need to use it  

TO USE:      

I.     Stir gently and well;  pour through a sieve to separate the grains from the yogurt (tap the sieve against your hands to shake the grains free from their yogurt curds)     II.     Do not wash the grains – they do not need it and tapwater will harm them;  Put them back in a clean jar and top up with fresh milk and go to step (2) above for the grains.  

III.     For the kefir yogurt you have strained off - add honey, agave syrup, vanilla or any desired flavouring and drink the kefir – it will keep in the fridge for up to 4-5 weeks.  

If it has separated out and is a bit “grainy”, I find that blending with a hand blender will make a nice smooth drinking yogurt – it thickens again in the fridge but stays smoothly blended.  Sometimes it separates if left standing in the fridge, but give it a gentle shake to reblend and it is fine.

Make sure you release the CO gently when you open the lid!  This has cultured and fermented so expect a little liveliness at times, particularly in warm weather.  

You do not need to heat the milk;  you do not need to keep the culture at any particular temperature, though of course its growth will be more predictable if you always leave it in the same place, and it does like to be a little bit warm. 

You do not need to sterilise anything, just keeping things clean will do. 

We have been making kefir since the late seventies and only once or twice had what seemed to be a mild contamination, which spoilt the flavour a little for a week or so, but the culture has always recovered.  If it smells slightly beery, this is perfect.  If it smells cheesy and unpleasant, just discard several batches of output until it starts to smell yogurty and beery again.  It will cleanse and re-balance itself. 

It does like lots of fresh changes of milk and moderate quantities – don’t try to culture a vast amount of milk at one time.  Keep checking the consistency by stirring it, and you will know when it is ready according to how you like it.

When we go on holiday, we just  put the whole thing in the fridge.  It sits there muttering and plotting for a while but it will “wake up” and begin working again with a couple of fresh changes of milk. 

When you get a lot of growth, you can freeze the grains, with or without milk, in a suitable plastic container.  Our record for successful recovery is of a culture frozen for just over a year, but we have known people successfully recovering it after much longer periods at low temperature.  We recommend using a glass jar so that you can judge the progress of the fermentation from the outside.

We find that a good tablespoonful of the grains, in a 1 litre/ 2lb glass jar half filled with milk, on the kitchen windowsill, gives an agreeable yogurt in about 24-48 hours.  But you may find that you prefer a milder or stronger yogurt.  Just experiment! The culture will grow and you can split the excess and have two jars running, which is what we do.  This way you will never run out of kefir.  If one of them is ready before you are, just pop the jar in the fridge. 

Also, you must save some culture in the freezer for a rainy day, this is very important as this way you will never lose your culture.  Sometimes they will just grow bigger and bigger – our record is one grain the size of a hen’s egg!  Other times they will throw off little grains – baby grains and then they will all start growing.  It just depends what stage in their mysterious cycle they are at. The more fresh milk cycles you give them, the faster they will grow.  

To freeze the grains:  simply pop them in a suitably labelled plastic container, as they are, soon after sieving.  A word of warning:  save back-up grains in the freezer as soon as you have any to spare. 

I use UHT or fresh organic whole milk;  whole milk makes a nice creamy yogurt, UHT means it is there in the cupboard whenever I need it and doesn’t go off, but any kind of milk will do.  The very best milk to use is raw, unpasteurised milk (go to www.hookandson.com for regular supplies).  You can make delicious kefir with goat’s, sheep’s milk and soya milk, but your grains will grow best in full cream cows milk as they are a lacto-culture and feed on the lactose milk sugar;  The full cream milk means you are getting the best nutrition as all the fat-soluble vitamins are provided. 

Kefir provides calcium in the most easily absorbed organic form;  the milk protein, casein, is pre-digested and the lactose is broken down into simple sugars, making the yogurt extremely easily digested.  The best kefir is made with fresh, raw (unpasteurised) milk straight from the farm but that is very hard to get hold of these days!   

Add Agave syrup, vanilla essence and stir in – adding more or less to taste.  

Blend some kefir yogurt with fresh strawberries and some agave syrup – it is heavenly.   

The taste of kefir is quite strong, sour yogurt and beery taste and not to everybody’s liking – so experiment with additives and flavours so that you get a taste you can drink easily.  

Try bananas and honey or any soft fruit like mango and honey.  

We put the yogurt into a cheesecloth and hang it to drain off the whey and add salt and herbs and make soft cheese with it.  The whey can be used in bread making or fermenting pickles like saurkraut or kimchi.  

Do try Dom’s kefir Insite on the internet, there is a vast amount of information and recipe ideas for kefir on this site – it is the site of the Kefir Master! http://users.sa.chariot.net.au/~dna/kefirpage.html

MICRO-ORGANISM LIST - this is the list of stars in your miracle grains....

Kefir varies from culture to culture and depends on its origins and what milk it has been cultivated in, but a rough list of the organisms present include:

LACTOBACILLI  

Lactobacillus 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

STREPTOCOCCI/LACTOCOCCI  

Streptococcus thermophilus

St. paracitrovorus ^

Lactococcus lactis subsp. lactis

Lc. lactis subsp. lactis biovar. diacetylactis

Lc. lactis subsp. cremoris

Enterococcus durans

Leuconostoc mesenteroides subsp. cremoris

Leuc. mesenteroides subsp. mesenteroides

Leuc. dextranicum ^

Dekkera anomala t

Brettanomyces anomalus a

Kluyveromyces marxianus t

Candida kefyr a#

Pichia fermentans t

C. firmetaria a

Yarrowia lipolytica t

C. lipolytica a

Debaryomyces hansenii t

C. famata a#

Deb. [Schwanniomyces] occidentalis Issatchenkia orientalis t

C. krusei a

Galactomyces geotrichum t

Geotrichum candidum a

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 t *

Zygosaccharomyces rouxii             

Acetobacter aceti

Acetobacter rasens  

t = Teleomorph. Sexual reproductive stage. Yeast form pseudo-mycelium as in Flowers of Kefir.

a = Anamorph. Asexual reproductive stage. Reproduce by budding or forming spores or cell splitting [fission].

# = Can utilize lactose or lactate.

^ = Aroma forming.

subsp.= Subspecie type.

sp. = Specie type.

sp. nov. = New strain or new specie strain type.

biovar. = Biological variation strain type.

var. = Variety type

Units = Count of Microbes in Gram Stained Kefir Grains 

            Bacilli [single cells, pair, chains]

            Streptococci [pair, chains]

            Yeast [single cells]           

Bacilli 66, 62-69%

Streptococci 16, 11- 12%

Yeast 18, 16- 20%

Lactococci > Lactobacilli > Leuconostoc > Yeast > Acetobacter

This means that the lactic-acid forming bacteria will evolve first (culturing the milk into yogurt), then the yeasts will do their bit (fermentation) and lastly the acetobacters, forming vinegar.  This means that a creamy mild yogurt will form first, then followed by the lively sparkling effects of the fermentation and lastly the more acidic flavour of the vinegar-making acetobacters will form.  So the earlier you take your yogurt, the milder and less acidic it will be.

Microbial Composition of Kefir at End of Fermentation [cfu/ml]:

Lactococci : 1,000,000,000

Leuconostocs : 100,000,000

Lactobacilli : 5,000,000

Yeast : 1,000,000

Acetobacter : 100,000  

This means over 1 billion live organisms per Milliliter - you drink roughly 250 mls or more per serving so you are getting 250 billion live organisms per serving - that is the equivalent to 50 pots of the little drinkie things in the supermarkets.  For pennies!!  AND without all that sugar (more sugar than coca-cola in some of them).  Enjoy Nature's Miracle.