The Essential Book of Fermentation (28 page)

I covered the jar top with a piece of paper towel and screwed it down with the metal band that comes with the canning lid, although I didn’t use the lid. This lets the kefir breathe and keeps out insects and dust and any odd bacteria, fungal spores, or yeasts that are floating in the air. Then the jar went into a kitchen cupboard for a day.

My first batch of homemade kefir was a revelation. The next morning I set the strainer on the bowl, took the band and paper toweling off the jar, and poured the contents into the strainer. There was some liquid whey that ran straightaway through the strainer into the bowl. I saw that if I wanted just whey for any reason, I could pour it off, but I had no use for it so I left it in the bowl. But the milky white part was a lumpy and clumpy mix of kefir grains and creamy, thick kefir. Using the plastic spoon, I worked the edge of the spoon back and forth in this milky mass, scraping gently against the plastic mesh of the strainer, and soon all the kefir had run through the strainer into the bowl with the whey. I put the strainer and the spoon into the kitchen sink. I wiped the inside rim of the quart jar with a piece of paper towel, just to keep things clean, then sat the plastic wide-mouth funnel on the jar. Figuring it would be best to get the grains back into milk as soon as possible, I poured the grains into the funnel so they plopped into the jar, and added a pint of the raw whole milk, replaced the paper towel and band back on the jar, and screwed it down. Then the jar went back into the cupboard. Now I rinsed off and dried the plastic spoon—again being a neat freak—and used it to stir the kefir and whey together to make a homogenous drink. I poured a half pint into each of two glasses—one for my wife, Susanna, and one for me. I drank my first batch straight, no fruit juice, and, surprisingly for a fussy eater like me, I liked it. It grew on me (literally and figuratively) as I drank it religiously every day, and now I absolutely love it. Making daily kefir is as easy as that. It takes just a few minutes, and there’s always kefir in my cupboard.

As you make your kefir every day, you’ll find that the grains grow in number, doubling in amount over a few weeks or so. As the grains increase in amount, their action becomes more vigorous and it takes less time for kefir to form. Try to keep the amount of SCOBY in your jar to about the size of a medium hen’s egg or even a pullet egg. Freezing doesn’t harm the microbes, so any extra you remove from time to time can be frozen in plastic baggies, given to friends, or shared with members of your local Fermenters Club (www.fermentersclub.com). Or, you can simply use the enlarged mass of grains to make larger batches of kefir to convert friends and family into kefir enthusiasts.

The vigor of the action of the SCOBY also depends on the temperature. The higher the temperature, the more vigorous the action. In hot weather or a room that’s heated to 80ºF or more, 12 to 14 hours will probably be enough time for kefir to form. It isn’t dangerous if the ferment goes longer, but it becomes more and more sour and more whey separates out over 24 hours at warmer temperatures, resulting in a biting, thin kefir. If you have variable heat in your house (no air-conditioning), you can decide to put the morning-made kefir jar in the fridge in the evening, which will slow the action of the grains way down overnight—and also give you pleasantly chilled kefir the next morning. Or, if your room is chilly, down to 60ºF or so, for sure go the full 24 hours or even longer. I find that 24 hours is perfect when the temperature is between 70 and 75ºF. What you’re shooting for is kefir that is creamy, smooth, and tangy, not acidic and thin.

About every three or four days I’ll wash out the canning jar after transferring the day’s kefir and its grain to the strainer. Kefir can be sticky, so a good scrubbing with a brush usually helps. Then I rinse and dry it so I don’t return the grains to a jar with residual chlorinated tap water.

You may hear that it’s necessary to wash the grains after every time you strain off the kefir. It’s not. First of all, the chlorine is put into city water to kill microorganisms—not what we want at all. The water may also contain fluoride, another poisonous substance. Second, washing can damage the happy little communities of bacteria and yeasts that grow so well in the milk we provide them. In fact, not washing them allows them to reach a sort of climax state of goodness. One day Susanna tasted our kefir and said to me, “This tastes more and more like the stuff the Russians were drinking at the Black Sea.” She’d visited there for her midwifery work in the 1980s, and Russians are well known for their love of kefir. What that says to me is that our home-grown kefir grains are now reaching the kind of maturity that the Russians enjoy.

STORING YOUR KEFIR AND GRAINS

It may happen that you have more homemade kefir than you can drink right away. Just pour it into a container or jar with a tight lid and store it in the fridge for up to two weeks.

But what about the grains? What to do with them if you make fresh kefir every day, and then you have to leave town for a week or two? There is no problem. Put the grains in a jar and cover them with fresh milk. Put the jar in the fridge for up to two weeks. If you want to store them in the fridge for longer than two weeks, strain out the grains, pour out the old milk, and pour in fresh milk. They’ll go an additional two weeks.

Even easier, and if you’re going to be away for an extended period, they freeze well and last indefinitely. If I have extra grains or I’m going away for a while, I put the grains and some of their curds into a zip-top freezer bag, zip the top closed, mark it “kefir grains” with a permanent marker, and store it in the freezer. When I return, I simply put the frozen grains back in my fermenting jar, cover with milk, screw on the paper towel, and put it in the cupboard. They will have made kefir by the next morning.

And that way if friends ask me for some grains, I have a frozen bag ready to hand over.

KEFIR CHEESE

Little Miss Muffet had the right idea, eating those beneficial curds and proteinaceous whey. Kefir curds, as with any curdled milk, can be used to make a probiotic kefir cheese.

When you make kefir at home using kefir grains, you have three products in your fermenting jar: clear, slightly greenish whey; kefir grains that are a symbiotic combination of bacteria and yeast; and curds formed from milk solids by the grains. When I make my morning kefir, the grains are separated from the curds and whey. I mix the whey into the curds to make a smooth, silky beverage.

To make kefir cheese, you need to get the curds and whey into a bowl and the grains back into their canning jar. Do this by setting the plastic strainer on a large bowl and empty the canning jar into the strainer. The whey and some of the thick, creamy curds will go through into the bowl, leaving curds and grains behind. Scrape the grains with a spoon back and forth in the strainer, getting as much of the curds as you can into the bowl. Place the grains back into the canning jar, add 2 cups of milk, cover it with the paper towel and band, and put it back in the cupboard to become tomorrow’s kefir for drinking. Using the plastic spoon, mix the curds and whey in the bowl into a homogeneous mixture.

Now cover the bowl with a clean cloth and let it sit in a warm, dry place for 24 hours. After 24 hours, the kefir in the bowl will have made a lumpy mass of curds and whey.

Line a colander with two layers of cheesecloth and set the colander over a large bowl. Pour the curds and whey into the cheesecloth, bring up the edges, and tie off the neck so that you have a bag full of kefir curds and whey. Hang the bag from the faucet in the kitchen sink or set the colander and bag far enough above the bowl so the bag doesn’t touch the whey that drains off, as you want to separate the curds from the whey. You can make kefir ricotta from that whey (see
here
).

When the drainage has slowed, gently squeeze the bag. Give it a gentle squeeze every half hour until all drainage stops. Turn the curds out of the cheesecloth into a clean food container, thoroughly mix in sea salt to taste or go no-salt if you prefer, and store it in the fridge. Use it like cottage cheese in salads, spread it on toast, or add dollops to cornbread batter. It tastes great.

Coconut Milk Kefir

What’s the difference between coconut water, coconut milk, and coconut cream? Coconut water is the mostly clear juice that is found in the hollow middle of the coconut, poured off without processing. Coconut milk is made from shredded coconut soaked in an equal amount of water, poured through cheesecloth, and then the cheesecloth is wrung out to capture the coconut milk. If this milk is allowed to sit in the refrigerator, coconut cream will rise to the top. To make coconut milk kefir, you can either buy ready-made coconut milk at the store or make it yourself by cracking out fresh coconut meat and grating it by hand or by shredding it in a food processor.

If you have enough milk kefir grains, reserve ½ cup and make milk kefir using the rest, as usual. The ½ cup will be used to make coconut milk kefir. Be aware that it may take a couple of tries for the grains to become accommodated to the coconut milk. Don’t give up. Just make another batch the next day. Soon your grains will be turning out rich coconut milk kefir that you can use as you would crème fraîche, yogurt, sour cream, or buttermilk.

Makes about 2 cups

½ cup milk kefir grains, unwashed

2 cups coconut milk

1.
Place the kefir grains in a wide-mouth quart canning jar and pour in the coconut milk.

2.
Lay a square of paper towel across the top and screw down the lid band (but not the lid).

3.
Allow the coconut milk to culture at room temperature for 12 to 15 hours, less time for warmer temperatures, more time for cooler temperatures, until the milk is cultured and thick. If the first batch fails to culture, pour off the coconut milk and reserve in the fridge for other uses, and make a second or third batch, if needed.

4.
Use a plastic strainer and spoon to retrieve the cultured coconut milk curds as you would for milk kefir, adding the grains back to the quart jar to make tomorrow’s batch. If you have enough coconut milk kefir in your fridge, revert the grains to cow’s milk, or freeze them in a zip-top freezer bag. To refresh the grains, let them culture cow’s milk for 24 hours at least once every 3 or 4 weeks.

NOTE:
This last direction only applies to kefir grains that have been used to make coconut milk kefir. Regular cow’s milk kefir grains are refreshed daily by their 24-hour soak in milk. But for the coconut milk grains to remain as a strong SCOBY, they need to be revivified in cow’s milk every few weeks; otherwise the combination will weaken and the grains will eventually disintegrate.

Cultured Butter