My favourite kefir recipes

Water kefir:
Brew plain for 2 days, ferment for 12 hours in bottles 1/2 water kefir and 1/2 pomegranate juice. YUM!!!

Milk Kefir: This one takes 4-5 days to make.
2 parts milk kefir, one brew per day. I like to brew a sweeter and milder milk kefir.
1 part coconut milk kefir
1 part almond milk kefir

I make them in that order and it takes 4 days total to make the main ingredients. While the other kefirs are waiting on the current ones brewing they are fermenting in a glass jar out of the fridge with orange peel and cinnamon powder.

I ferment for one more day to get it nice and fizzy. Watch out for that coconut milk kefir. It gets really frothy. It has pushed the lid off my jar more than once but it makes for a super creamy delicous drink. The almond milk gives it a more robust, nutty flavour and goes well with the cinnamon and the orange peel. The milk is just the base and the loaded nutrients. Makes for a savory, yummy treat. I really love this drink.

goats milk is not for me.

So today I strained the goats milk kefir. The grains did look extra happy, a little plumper and slimier, however, I couldn't stand the taste or smell.

It's not very noticeable right at first, but the aftertaste is similar to goats cheese and I can't have that! I do have to say the kefir looked much nicer. It was a nice smoothy creamy looking consistency where as the cows milk kefir looks a bit more grainy. The goats milk kefir is also less sour. I just can't stand the goaty taste. So I had to pour the milk down the drain as I knew there was no way I could stomach that whole half litre. I also had to rinse my utensils and jars really well because the goats milk was so fatty. It seems to leave an oily film behind. Now I know, I will probably never buy goat milk again. I will still eat goat cheese though. I do like that.

Also I noticed a difference with my kefir since I've been brewing it differently. When the jar lid is on tight, I get no bubbles, and a very thick and sour kefir. It's a good consistency with a very nice aftertaste. When I put a cheese cloth over the lid and brew for the same amount of time, the curds and whey don't separate as much, resulting in a much milder, thinner, but slightly carbonated kefir. When I do a secondary fermentation I get nice fine bubbles like champagne. Wow! Like a little party in the mouth for sure. Lastly, the tastiest kefir I've made is a combo of almond and cows milk kefir, that was mixed together, and went through a secondary fermentation with some cinnamon powder and dehydrated orange peel. Yumo! Definitely sour but also delicious! I will always do a secondary fermentation with the milk kefir for at least two days now and I'll try other ingredients to it. I like!!!

It worked.

So today I checked the milk kefir I had sealed in a glass jar for it's secondary fermentation and guess what???? Bubbles!!! It was also quite sour so I decided to throw in the towel for now. I bottled it up and then placed it in the fridge for cooling. It will continue to ferment a bit but much more slowly. It has a nice flavour. I mixed the almond kefir and milk kefir together so it has a slightly nutty taste. However, I can't tell if that was due to the orange peel and cinnamon I added. I bottled another bottle of milk kefir today for secondary fermentation. I only put a stick of cinnamon in the bottle. Let's see what it tastes like.

On that note, my water kefir has definitely multiplied but the sugar crystals are quite small. Looks like they are breaking or shrinking. So today, instead of using cane sugar, I used sucanat sugar. Apparently it has much more calcium for the grains to build their body up. I also started using goat milk today for my milk kefir. I hope it will make my grains big and healthy. I tasted some of the goat milk before I put it in. First off, it was weird when I opened the bottle as there were curds or clumps of fat floating up at the top. The clumps looked every much like goat cheese. When I poured it out more clumps came out, but not as big and chunky. I was afraid to taste it as I imagined liquefied goats cheese but in fact it was not. The goats milk was quite sweet and delicious. It had a teeny tiny gamey after taste. I'm not sure if I could drink it all the time but I think the gamey taste would disappear with the kefiring process. If it didn't have that slight gamey after taste I would prefer it to cow milk. Apparently, goat milk is way better for you than cow milk and more people in the world drink goats milk than cows milk.

I really love experimenting with all these foods. I feel like a fermenting scientist!

First taste of water kefir

So the brew I made this week was the typical first brew brew. It had 1/3 cup of cane sugar, with 4 cups of liquid and about 1/2 a cup of kefir grains. I also added a teaspoon of unsulphured black strap molasses and some eggshell. I also added one fig. I covered my jar up with a cheese clothe and wrapped an elastic band around that.

That was many days ago. And two days ago I strained the water kefir and bottled it. I left it on my counter airtight, almost* full to the brim and waited. The bottle kinda bulged a bit and I could tell it had carbonated nicely. So this morning I chilled it. I came home directly after work and was sooo excited to try it out!

Basically within several minutes I felt a bit woozy and my tummy felt warm, plus I burped a lot. It tasted slightly sweet and was quite carbonated but not like pop. The bubbles seemed more fine. I think the alcohol content kinda surprised me. Perhaps it fermented for too long? It was still good but I don't want to be knocked out every time I drink it. I would consider it a success. I can't wait till I have a big supply. I hope I don't get fat drinking this!

Secondly, my kefired almond milk was ready this morning. I bottled it up for extra fermentation. However, when I got home I took a taste of it and I didn't enjoy it all very much. Instead, I mixed it with my kefir milk that was going through a secondary fermentation as well. I added some cinnamon and orange peel. I saw a recipe like that online somewhere. I hope that turns out well. I think I'll ferment it for 4 days. I notice that since I've started using the cheese cloth to cover my milk kefir brews that there has been more carbonation. I'm hoping that the secondary fermentation will increase that greatly. I definitely notice a much more mild taste, which is good. I will conquer this!

And update on the scoby, so far I have not heard from the scoby man on craigslist. Hopefully soon.

My new projects.

Lately, I've been very interested in fermented foods. They are all the rave on the internet and I've always enjoyed the store bought Kefir by Liberte. At one point it got to be too much to spend 4/5 dollars a week to buy a small container of kefir. I decided I needed to make my own and started my search for Kefir grains. Low and behold, a long lost friend (thank goodness for facebook!) was also into Kefir and she kindly shared some of her grains with me. So far, I've had some difficulty making my milk kefir. It tastes kefirish, but it does not have any fizz and sometimes it's much too sour. I suppose I have not been the most consistent with taking care of it either. So I've decided to really try and take good care of the milk Kefir grains and hope that they will one day repay me with fizz. Funny thing is I know my kefir is alive and well because it multiplies quickly and produces a lot of Kefirin. I often wonder if I am missing some important yeasts that produce large amounts of Co2. Anyhow, due to the excess kefir grains, I gave some of to a friend. I taught her how to make the kefir as I did and hers comes out slightly carbonated. So, I am thinking also it might just be the environment. Her home is much warmer than mine.

Not long ago (maybe 3 months ago), I also discovered water kefir grains. I was reluctant to try these grains as the instructions on the internet seemed a bit more complicated than making milk kefir. However, as I read on more, my interest increased so I ordered some online and got it recently in the mail. I ordered them from the Kefir Lady (www.kefirlady.com) and it came dehydrated. When they arrived they reminded me of small pieces of rock sugar. I instantly putthem in water and sugar and within 2 hours they looked about the size shown in many pictures on the internet. They had rehydrated beautifully. The first batch took 5 days or so to brew. That first batch I threw out, however the next batch fermented quickly and within two days I had a slightly carbonated yellow liquid. Today was the first day I bottled up the water kefir for it's secondary fermentation (for that extra fizz). I tasted it and it had a very nice, slightly sweet, fruity taste with a light fizz. It's much easier to drink than milk kefir. Tomorrow night I will put it in the fridge and ferment for several more days before I drink it. I was so happy that it was carbonated. It was also as easy as pie to make: add sugar, water, egg shell, fig and grains. The grains seemed to have doubled already. I'm not sure they really had or if my eyes were just fooling me. But if they had doubled, soon I'll have enough water kefir grains to share and experiment with.

Since the water kefir has been so successful I started to read up on Kombucha. I had always thought Kombucha looked kinda nasty and it also looked a little complicated because it took so long to brew and because usually the brews I saw on the net were so big. However, after some research I realized it didn't seem so hard. I checked and saw that on Craigslist someone was offering free kombucha scoby's (symbiotic colonies of bacteria and yeast) so I emailed them. I'll keep you all posted on how that turns out.

Also, today was the first day I made raw almond milk. That was the easiest thing I've ever done. It's great because now I can make exactly the amount I want. I rarely drink milk and I always end up throwing all my almond milk away whenever I did buy it . What a waste. So today I made about 4 cups of almond milk. I drank one cup. Saved another cup for lunch tomorrow, and put the rest in with some kefir grains to ferment. I read that fermented almond milk was a great treat. Let's see how that will turn out tomorrow.

It's a day for many firsts. In the meantime, I will try many different methods to increase carbonation in my milk kefir. I don't think I will be satisfied until that happens. Hopefully I'll find the magic key to making my milk kefir sparkle.