The wonders of the kefir grain explored.

My temporary landlord Russell Busch, who is also a good friend, just introduced me to kefir making. Kefir is a fermented milk drink that contains plenty of healthy probiotics. To make kefir from milk you need kefir grains which are a live and active culture of yeast and bacteria.

Kefir is a very common drink in Eastern Europe and the Nordic countries. I grew up with it and if I remember correctly, the Swedish kefir is thicker, more sour and has a slightly carbonated feel to it. Swedes often eat kefir (with a spoon) together with muesli, cornflakes, fruit or just with sugar and cinnamon. I like my kefir best just plain with fresh fruit or berries. Others prefer making smoothies with frozen berries and fruits as it takes off some of the strong sour flavor. Luckily Kefir has become increasingly common here in the U.S.

The kefir making process is super easy and you don’t really need to do much as the kefir grains do most of the work.

To make kefir you will need:

• kefir grains (which you order online here or here or somewhere else)
• organic whole milk from cow, sheep or goat
• glass jar
• small piece of cheese cloth + rubber band (or similar)
• wood or plastic spoon/ spatula
• fine mesh plastic strainer (or stainless steel)

Note: no metal such as aluminum etc can be used as it will react with the kefir grains. Although, for some reason stainless steel seems to be OK.

Place the new kefir grains in a clean glass jar (about two tablespoons). Pour about 1 cup organic whole milk over the grains. Cover with the cheesecloth and fasten it with a rubber band (I actually just use a plastic lid that is just placed on top). Leave the jar on the counter in room temperature away from any sun.

When the kefir has gotten thicker it is probably done. It should smell pleasantly and have a mild sour taste. At this stage you will have a drinkable kefir. If it stays longer the kefir will start to separate the curdled milk from the whey. Don’t worry, the kefir is still fine, however it will be slightly thicker and have a richer taste. A longer fermentation will also create more probiotics and less lactose. The fermentation will take about 12-36 hours.

When you think you are ready, give the jar a shake and drain it through the plastic strainer to separate the kefir from the grains. It’s important to be gentle with the grains so don’t press them too hard. The kefir grains don’t have to be totally clean from curds for the next batch. The ready-made kefir can be stored in the fridge, preferably in a glass container. It will keep fresh for awhile. If you think the kefir is too loose you can strain it to reduce some of the whey. Leftover whey can be used for many things (see below).

Next Batch
Prepare the next batch by placing the strained kefir grains into a clean glass jar. This time you should add a little more milk and the fermenting process will probably go faster as the grains have grown larger and become more active.

The more kefir you make the bigger the grains will grow, you will therefore need to adjust the amount of milk depending on their size. At some point you need to split the grains up as there is a limit on how much kefir you can make. I suggest giving some grains to a friend or start making other things with it. You can, for example, make kefir drinks by using almond, soy or coconut milk instead of regular milk. In this kind of process the grains will not grow and therefore not last as long. I haven’t tried it yet but my landlord makes coconut kefir drinks daily.

What To Do With The Kefir
There are many other things you can do with the kefir if you don’t just want to drink or eat it. Kefir is excellent in dips, dressings, cakes and bread. It can also be used instead of yeast when baking bread.

Recently I made my own cream cheese or rather fresh cheese by straining the kefir from the whey through a clean kitchen towel or several layers of cheese cloth (takes about 24 hours). This creamy cheese can be served plain or flavored with fresh herbs, garlic or anything you like. It’s also great to make pierogi leniwe (Polish lazy pierogi).

You can do many things with the whey such as ferment vegetables, sauerkraut (cabbage) and when diluted 5 times with water it can be used as a fertilizer for your plants. For about a week I collected the leftover whey to make ricotta. I was amazed how well it worked out as the whey just looks like cloudy water.

Storing The Kefir Grains
At some point you may want to have a break in your kefir making and it’s actually possible to store the kefir grains with some milk in your fridge. Just feed them with new fresh milk every now and again. When you start again the grains may not be as active as before the break, so you probably have to start again with just a small amount of milk.

Illustrations by Johanna Kindvall

The post Recipe: Make Your own Kefir Like a True Swede appeared first on EcoSalon.

I regularly peruse the aisles of supermarkets in the Bay Area to see if any new glass containers have arrived in plasticville. It appears the only glass act still around is Straus Family Creamery – a family-owned dairy farm on the shores of Tomales Bay and the Point Reyes National Seashore, 60 miles north of San Francisco. The Creamery sends it bottles all over the West Coast, including Oregon, Washingon, Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico.

Straus, a forward-thinking producer with a delicious product, offers consumers a refund for the deposit they pay when buying milk. This creates a system of sustainability akin to the old days of the milkman delivering and picking up our bottles in wire baskets with wooden handles.

“We get 6 to 8 uses of our bottles with over 80% of customers returning them to the stores,” Albert Straus tells me. He led the conversion of the dairy to a certified organic dairy in 1993. Bottles were a natural choice because glass is inert (nothing leeches into it) and it reflects the quality of his product. Still, he says, many dairies are trying to please a market bent on the convenience of disposables.

“Consumers need to make the shift, as well, and be willing to take bottles, rent them, and bring them back, which is a little more work,” Straus says. “We have a growing consumer base that is willing to do it.”

Then why aren’t his competitors following suit? Even the state’s first raw milk dairy, Organic Pastures Company in the San Joaquin Valley, sells its 100% pasture-grazed products in plastic bottles. If that isn’t counterintuitive I don’t know what is. It’s almost like preparing a gourmet vegan Easter supper and then serving it on paper plates with plastic utensils.

The same goes for Berkeley Farms from Emeryville, Calif., which still uses plastic to house its organic products, and Horizon Organic Milk out of Colorado, America’s first organic dairy brand which is sold at many markets in California as the healthy alternative.

On its website, Horizon describes its packaging as the “safest packaging possible” housing its half-gallon and quart milk cartons in earth-friendly, recyclable opaque paperboard. It says these cartons do not contain harmful chemicals, such as chlorine, and are colored using food-safe water-based inks. It adds when recycled, the materials used in our aseptic cartons, including the polyethylene and aluminum, are recovered and used again. Sarah Loveday, communications manager at Horizon, tells me it’s not really cost effective to bottle their milk.

“It’s more expensive to purchase glass and from sustainable standpoint, the weight of transporting it to retailers would increase our carbon footprint,” says Loveday. “In the end, the additional cost would be passed onto the consumer, which we don’t want to happen.”

But what about the landfill cost? Straus observes the so-called recyclable containers are treated in plastic for durability and aren’t truly biodegradable. He should know. Some of his other products – butter and ice cream – are sold in such packages and he is working on a plan to convert them, as well.

Elsewhere in the U.S., the benefits of glass are becoming more clear. Manhattan Milk in New York city delivers organic and hormone-free milk to city folks, requiring a $15 minimum order with a $5 delivery charge, saying it is your “new local milk man.”

In Kansas City, there’s Shatto Milk, which tells consumers it decided to use glass bottles because they keep milk colder, they’re eco friendly, and can be washed and reused as often as they are returned. Shatto adds that ” unlike paper cartons or plastic, glass imparts no foreign odor or flavor and glass bottles are most notable in history for containing farm fresh milk from the local family farm.”

But will the dairy state of California deliver those good bottles of white? Straus says he has created a good sustainable model for bottling milk with the deposit and return system and more efficient use of water to purify the containers for reuse. “We have cut our water use from 12 gallons a minute to one gallon and a half per minute,” he says, “thereby making old 50s washing equipment more efficient.”

Guess it’s truly up to us – the consumers – to get more organic dairies to follow that model, the same way we got America to eradicate trans fats in processed foods. If we demand bottles, they will come.

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