Anyone ever made kefir?

[amalnahurriyeh]

I'm a practiced yogurt-maker, since my son won't drink plain milk but will drink yogurt/OJ smoothies, and we're on WIC which means we get lots of free milk. (It helps that I have my mother-in-law's yogurt maker from the 1970s, which didn't get used until I cleaned out her house for her sell.) But today, he successfully drank purchased kefir, which opens up some new opportunities. Has anyone ever made kefir? According to my strategic Googling, you can't just use kefir as a starter, you actually need grains. But kefir appears to be less of a PITA to make (no need to scald the milk and so forth, made at room temp, could be pre-flavored to cut down on us needing to buy so much OJ, etc).

(Making yogurt is fun, though, if you can score a second-hand maker or if, say, your crock-pot goes that low. Especially because you can add a lot of cream to it and get particularly yummy yogurt as a result. I've been enjoying it, except the burned boiled-over milk on the stove.)

Comments

[stripped]

This is a complete sidepoint, and I apologize... but I tried making yogurt once and failed miserably. How do you make it and do you know of resources online I could look at? I'd be interested in trying it again and had no idea there was a yogurt making device for the warmth.

[amalnahurriyeh]

No worries! I like explaining things I have become marginally competent at.

I think a yogurt maker makes a big difference, because there's none of this fiddly did-I-or-didn't-I-get-the-temp-right crap. You just put it in there plugged in and it holds the temp for you. They're unitaskers and a little pricey, so maybe best found second hand or something. Mine is, er, something like this except with only 5 cups and from the 70s. And by Salton, which still makes 'em.

My procedure is (for 1 qt yogurt):

1) bring 1 scant qt milk to boil or just below (try to avoid letting it boil over on stove; I always fail at this step)
2) let it cool to OK temperature for adding culture (I have a special yogurt thermometer that has a space for the OK temp range)
3) add either freeze-dried starter or a quarter-cup fresh yogurt (which should be the highest quality, preferably small-batch-made and local yogurt you can get--I've had bad results with mass produced yogurt, even organic and expensive brands)
4) put in yogurt maker, leave alone for 12 hours

What happened wrong with your yogurt? Sometimes I get lumpy yogurt, which I take as a sign I had a no-good culture (yogurt is still tasty, though); sometimes I let the milk cool too much, and have to heat it up again, and then overheat it, etce etc. The initial scalding stage apparently breaks down proteins or something--it's techinically an optional step, you could just bring the milk up to temperature and go from there, but this is the way I learned and I'm sticking to it.

[stripped]

I can't remember what happened to my yogurt... I suspect I didn't scald it well, then I was using a technique from an Indian cookbook which used a large earthenware bowl in a low oven and I think I ended up with well... milk. Lukewarm milk.

I might get a maker to try. Part of the reason I wanted to do it is to make paneer cheese, but another part is to make yogurt I can eat as cheaply as I can manage because I can't do sugary stuff. The idea of putting cream into it intrigues me, because cream is more legal for me than milk.

If you make yogurt with one of those packaged starters (I saw some linked to the pages on Amazon), can you then use the last batch of yogurt you made as a starter for the next batch so you don't have to keep buying starters? Does it lose potency?

[amalnahurriyeh]

a large earthenware bowl in a low oven and I think I ended up with well... milk. Lukewarm milk.

Totally not an expert, but it sounds like your culture couldn't grow fast enough and it just stayed milk. If you check yogurt like only an hour or two into the process, it'll just be like warm milk--it takes five-six hours to get somewhere, minimum. So maybe yours stalled out somewhere. People say yogurt just happens; I call bullshit on that.

Oh, yogurt with cream in it. I started doing it because I've got some sort of weird dairy intolerance, where the lower-fat the dairy product is, the weirder it tastes/feels to me--so ice cream, triple-creme cheese, whipped cream, and butter are all fine, but skim milk and regular cheese are right out. (You know, I think I won that lottery.) So I ended up only being able to eat this yogurt, which is amaaaaaaaazing but a little pricey, so I could make my own, and it was awesome. I've just been making whole milk for the baby, but I may start adding cream to it, because he's having trouble maintaining his weight, and yogurt is the highest-fat thing he'll consume.

I have used packaged-starter yogurt as starter, and it's worked. Probably at some point you'll need to buy more, but you definitely don't have to buy new starter every time. What I did for a while was only put cups in 4 of the five cup-holes in my yogurt maker, and put a babyfood jar of leftover milk and starter in the last, and then save that for the next batch's starter. It worked pretty well. If I had one of those yogurt makers that just makes one big container, I'd pull some early to remember to use as starter, because it's sad to get to the bottom of the thing and say, dammit, I needed starter for the rest. (That's part of why I'm intrigued by kefir, since you pull the grains out and reuse them over, rather than having to save some of the actual beverage.)

[stripped]

Yeah, I think mine just stalled out. Next time I'll buy a culture -- I can't remember what I used for the starter, but it was what the recipe recommended.

Now you have me totally wanting to try making it again.

I have to admit, kefir kind of scares me. I tried a purchased one once, but the texture put me off (I can drink a smoothy, but I don't like gritty drinks). I had been drinking it because someone suggested it for some digestive issue I was having, but it just didn't work well for me.

Yogurt, on the other hand, I love love love eating. Mm. I am now thinking I need to work lunch around having some as part of it...