All about Kefir

First Authored 30/10/2019

So, just what is Kefir? Since young I use to loooove yoghurt. In malaysia we usually get the yoghurt from the local turban cowherd guy, and then mom will make it from boiled milk. I have fond memories of its silky texture, and for someone who was lactose intolerance, somehow the fermentation process helped reduce this alot and made milk more consumable for me.

Over here in the UK, I got drawn towards the fad of Greek yoghurts, whose consistency reminded me of the above but somehow still tasted pretty raw milky and made me have upset stomach alot. :(

Then soon enough, this year in 2019 I found out about kefirs, when I was shopping at Waitrose. To my knowledge , kefir is fermented milk using many gut friendly bacteria (think Vitagen but like, inside the milk), so there ends up a product that has the silken texture of greek yoghurt but has all the goodness of healthy bacteria.

I was so excited, it almost reminded me of the traditional yoghurts which I used to like. In fact, supermarket still do the traditional "bio/natural" yoghurt, or that Pakeeza brand, but they were too jelly like, and if you want to make it versatile ie like for compote breakfast, then tak jadi la. So I bought couple of these supermarket Kefirs and grew to love them instantly. I then wondered if there were ways which I could use the store bought versions and make mine.

After a period of trial and error (And my poor boyfriend tolerating my antics and the fridge stinking of fermented milk..), I write down the final recipe of how one can achieve this, and also for my own reference la! :

What you need:
1.  A decent bottle container of volume big enough to hold your yoghurt
2.  A bowl of volume big enough to hold the yoghurt before transferring to above.
3. 1 pint of whole milk (Must be whole milk, less chance of success with semi skimmed or skim), pasteurised and dont care whether homogenised or nonhomogenised (nonhomogenised means when you boil the milk you will see the cream layer form... yum! <3)
4. saucepan for heating
5. Store bought kefir brand, (I use biotiful or M&s have started making their own ones)

Method.
1. I buy about 1 pint of above milk then bring to room temperature by leaving outside
2. Do the same for the store bought kefir.
3. When both are not cold anymore (I just feel them), I draw out about 100mls kefir into a bowl as the base
4. Then I warm the milk. Medium ring, lowest heat, until it bubbles up gently (not too vigorously), and then I stop the heat.
5. Let both bowl and saucepan cool away (usually overnight, or few hours if doign this during winter months)
6. Then I pour the once heated milk into the bowl of kefir (remember saucepan of milk must be cool, otherwise itll kill the kefir bacteria)
7. Then cover the bowl with a plate - I leave it  OUT (no fridge, just stovetop or somewhere dark will do) for a MINIMUM 48 hours to 72 hours to ferment and get the overall kefir consistency
8. Once happy with consistency, transfer to bottle (or keep within bowl itself) - will last a good 1 month ++!

Mistakes I have done :
- When going gung-ho with this personal project I bought myself kefir grains online after watching some YouTube videos on how people were making this from home. (it turned out that quite a few people derive a hobby from this) I invested quite a bit trying to obtain kefir grains in order to do it right, but it turned out to be a big failure! It made my milk become all cheese like and pretty scary completely honest!
- My recipe above does not involve any kefir grains
- I tried to do it with semi skimmed milk , It just didnt work LOL! Go for organic whole milk is best, otherwise a reputable whole milk seller might also work.