Kefir Recipes

No,No,No,No; salmon pink is FINE; that’s just the colony maturing and grouping together. Your kefir is NOT contaminated or bad in any way, and there is no need for rinsing that I’ve ever heard of. Let me clarify that: I have heard many times of people rinsing their grains/buds; but many others claim it is unnecessary, and even damages a protective layer the colony forms around itself. I myself have never rinsed any buds, and it’s my belief that it’s an unnecessary practice that may even inhibit your little guys in some way. My OPINION is that the only reason to ever get rid of your culture and start fresh is if it changes the character or taste of your kefir in some way that is not to your personal liking.

Case in point:

I loved kefir from the first taste, and the friend who introduced me to it split his culture for me, and I took that piece home with me. Keep in mind that he had been using this same culture for a year or more. So I started my on batching. Problem was, I couln’t make it FAST enough! I like my kefir pretty mature and tangy, and have to wait longer for a batch to “age” to my liking. since I was only making a half gallon at a time, I’d wait a week (at room temp, mind you), and then only have kefir for two days, 3 at most. I mean, I can demolish a quart of the stuff in one sitting; so I’d have to start again, and go through that cycle again. It was mostly working and waiting, and very little brief enjoyment; so finally, I got frustrated with it. I had a half-batch in the fridge ( I culture at room temp, but prefer to drink it cold) and just let it go. I intended to make more, but just got so tired of working and waiting so long to get so little of what I wanted, that in actuality, I just gave up on it. So my last batch of kefir sat in the back corner of the fridge. I don’t remember any more how long it’s been there, but it’s been way over a year (remember this; there’ll be a quiz later). In the meantime, one of the local grocery chains started selling commercially made kefir. I tried it and liked it, but at over $3.50/quart it was an expensive habit; so I started using it to culture more. It worked. I’d buy a quart of skim milk to a quart of kefir, or maybe a half-gallon of milk to a quart of kefir if I was willing to wait longer, and I had more kefir faster that way than with my early attempts. Then I bought some bottled water in gallon plastic jugs; drank the water, and used the jugs to culture kefir, now at a rate of 4 gallons at a time. I thought, finally, I’m getting nearly as much kefir as I want. I put in the fridge what I want to drink immediately, and let the rest sit out for a few weeks or a month until I get around to it, and force myself to drink only 8 oz. a day :>( to make it last. by the time I have only one gallon left, I can use it to start another batch of 4. Ok; this works, more or less.

Now (quiz time) what about the stuff that’s been in the fridge over a year. About a quart, maybe as much as 48 ozs. Neglected. Dead for sure, right? Gotta get that outta there. It’s just taking up space. Decided this last night. But I got adventurous (which is how we all got onto kefir in the first place, right? Everybody say “yes”…). I poured out a little sip….

WOW!! You want tangy??? We gotcher TANGY right HERE! WOO!

Another sip, and another, to get used to the taste. OK, TOO tangy, even for me. Tangy like straight vinegar. Very acidy. But I wasn’t scared, because the high acicity woud be hostile to virtually any other organism loking for a home in my kefir. So with regret (and probably in some ignorance as to what else this “sharp” kefir could be used for), I poured out the liquid, but saved the colony. Then, for the only time I ever did it, I rinsed the colony, just in case I was wrong about other organisms. I know now I needn’t have been concerned.

I put the rinsed colony in a clean glass jar (I consider sterilization unnecessary, owing to the nature of the kefir colony to immediately put up “no trespassing” signs wherever it goes, and enforce them rigorously), and poured fresh sim milk over it. A taste this morning.

I didn’t know what to expect, but in retrospect and using reason to figure it out, I should have expected what I got. What I got was nascent kefir that tasted much like the (in my opinion) overly tangy kefir I poured out. Fainter, not as pronounced, but just as tangy. Like an echo; exact same sound, just not as loud. Exact same taste, just not as loud.

Well, duh; of course. Over the year in the fridge, the character of the colony changed. It evolved. It HAD to, to stay alive. It was cut off from fresh food (more milk), so had to survive on what it had available. By feeding and re-feeding on the same stuff (the beverage formerly known as milk) it created for itself a more and more acidic environment, and only those microoganisms that could survive and reproduce in that environment stayed alive. In fact, they came to PREFER that highly acid environment; so when they came into contact with fresh milk last night, they immediately began to change it to their liking. These are critters that live and thrive in high acid, and so produce for themselves a high acid environment. They could do no other. Makes perfect sense. So the colony continues to live. And remember, it was over a year old when I got it; but the previous owner kept it fed with fresh milk, so the colony continued to produce tamer kefir until I neglected it into evolving into a high-acid strain.

So now I have to decide whether I want to keep this high-acid strain or not. That’s going to be a struggle. There’s GOT to be a use for super-over-the-top tangy kefir, like in cooking or something, but I’m woefully ignorant of what it might be.

Meantime, as for myself, I’m fine as frog hair. No ill effects from drinking kefir over a year old. BTW, I did read about such a couple of different places around the web, so I wasn’t striking out off-trail completely by myself.

So while this is only a single example, I think it INDICATES (not proves) a few things:

A kefir colony CAN be hardy and adaptive;
It CAN be used over and over for extended periods of time, even years;
Its character CAN be “adjusted” by how often you give it fresh milk;
No matter how old it is, if it’s not dead, it’s entirely POSSIBLE to drink without harm.

But in the meantime, I’m looking for fresh grains. I still drink the stuff I culture from commercial kefir too fast to get it to the tangy state I like and keep it there. And by the time it “matures” to where I really like it, I’m almost out, and I have to dilute it with fresh milk to keep it going; and no grains ever develop, so I’m back to square one. I think grains represent a colony that is already mature; that, or the commercial kefir is chosen or treated for market somehow (no doubt a requirement of the Nanny State formerly known as The Land of the Free) such that grains can’t develop in the time I allow.

So any help out there? I’m looking for mature, viable grains that give a tangy sort of buttermilk flavor without being over-the-top vinegary. And if you’re out there, how do we communicate privately (off of this forum) so neither of us has to splash our personal info on the ‘net?

I don’t ask for much, do I? (Right.)

Thanks, everybody. – C.

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