3 ways to make homemade kefir

Homemade kefir - choose your method!

Safe­ty pre­cau­tions

Per­form the ex­per­i­ment only un­der adult su­per­vi­sion.

Equip­ment

  • 3L milk;
  • ke­fir starter cul­ture;
  • 3 tsp sour cream;
  • 50 mL store-bought ke­fir;
  • 1L glass bot­tles;
  • gauze;
  • rub­ber band;
  • tile;
  • pot.

Step-by-step in­struc­tions

Pour 3L milk into a pot and bring to a boil. This elim­i­nates un­nec­es­sary bac­te­ria. Let cool to room tem­per­a­ture and di­vide into three clean 1L glass bot­tles. Add the com­po­nents that turn milk into ke­fir: add store-bought starter cul­ture to the first bot­tle, 3 tsp sour cream to the sec­ond bot­tle, and 50mL store-bought ke­fir to the third bot­tle. Mix thor­ough­ly and cov­er each bot­tle with gauze. Leave the bot­tles in a cool, dark place for 12 hours. Your de­li­cious, home­made ke­fir is ready!

Process de­scrip­tion

Ke­fir is a pop­u­lar fer­ment­ed milk prod­uct ob­tained via acidic and al­co­holic fer­men­ta­tion. It’s usu­al­ly made by adding a sym­bi­ot­ic cul­ture of milk bac­te­ria and yeast to milk in or­der to con­vert lac­tose, or milk sug­ar, into lac­tic acid and com­plete the fer­men­ta­tion process. Lac­tose is a dis­ac­cha­ride found in milk con­sist­ing of glu­cose and galac­tose frag­ments. Un­der the in­flu­ence of lac­tic acid bac­te­ria, lac­tose is most­ly ox­i­dized to lac­tic acid. The lat­ter is par­tial­ly bro­ken down to pro­pi­onic acid by pro­pi­oni­bac­te­ria, which are also present in the mix­ture. Many oth­er sub­stances form dur­ing fer­men­ta­tion that con­trib­ute to the unique taste of ke­fir, such as pyru­vic acid, ace­toin, and amino acids. Some ethanol and car­bon diox­ide form dur­ing fer­men­ta­tion as well. The milk’s acid­i­ty in­creas­es and its pro­teins co­ag­u­late, and the milk turns into ke­fir! Like milk, ke­fir con­tains some cal­ci­um Ca, B vi­ta­mins, and con­sid­er­able quan­ti­ties of se­lect oth­er vi­ta­mins. We can con­sid­er the home­made ke­fir we ob­tained not only a great base for smooth­ies and sal­ad dress­ing but a fine source of nu­tri­tion as well.