:: The 'Good Feeling' Drinks :: Water Kefir & Milk Kefir ::

Life is great! I am on holidays for another couple of weeks, we’ve just hosted The Urban Homesteading Club, my little boy is about to turn 4, we are ready for back to school, and altogether I am feeling fairly relaxed and on top of things. I think the change in our diet has already had a positive effect on my attitude… the extra B vitamins, the extra good fats, the satisfaction of actually doing exercise (whilst watching past episodes of Glee!) AND of course, the feeling of making positive changes. Yes, I’ve been trying to have time to read (so many good books), hang out with the kids, hang out with the chooks and not over schedule us this holidays, so that helps. But we have also been eating more free range & organic eggs, organic pasture-raised butter, organic & grass-fed beef, whole milk (goat, or organic, where possible), and reducing our processed food consumption. I am cooking with coconut oil (raw, virgin, organic) and I take a spoonful of it each day. I have been totally gluten free again (like my Coeliac husband). We are all drinking filtered water, reducing our sugar intake, and best of all, have been drinking both water kefir, and milk kefir, (pronounced keh-fear) which translates to mean "Good Feeling"!

What is Kefir?

Some of you might not know what kefir is! I had heard of it on Julie's blog and in reading Wild Fermentation but only recently looked into it more. It is a lacto-fermented drink, full of good properties to help your health in many ways, but for us, we particularly wanted to improve our GI health and strengthen our immunity. The milk one is sort of like a yoghurt drink, but they apparently have way more good bacterias and yeasts than yoghurt does. The kefirs are fermented from ‘grains’ (which are like crystals or granules, not an actual grain, they are gluten free) using a growing medium. You brew/ ferment the drinks by ‘feeding’ the grains, either with sugar-water (non-chlorinated, non-fluoridated) for the water kefir, or with milk sugars from fresh milk, for the milk kefir. The sugars are consumed by the colonies, so you are not consuming any sugar. The grains also pre-digest the lactose and protein in the milk too, making milk kefir products easier to digest, apparently.

How Do You Make Kefir?

You can make them at home just using glass jars, strainers and mesh fabric cover or lids (no fancy equipment needed). I am using Fowlers Vacola preserving jars, because that is what I had. I bought stainless steel tea strainers, though many use plastic or nylon ones. You may be able to source kefir grains from someone you know, or buy from a website or eBay. (Australians can check out Cultures Alive, or Tumbletree). In a bit of a mix-up, I ended up with two batches of each kefir grains sent to me in the end from both these companies, but to reduce my confusion, I have now combined the water kefir grains from the two different companies together, and then the milk kefir grains together in a different batch (my husband didn’t think that was very scientific!).

Basic Milk Kefir Instructions

• Place the grains in a clean (not-warm-or-hot) jar. (I use the jars that have been washed by the dishwasher overnight, so are cool by the morning).
• Add 1 cup of milk for every 1 tablespoons worth of grains. I use milk straight from the fridge.
• Put a lid on, or use a mesh/ muslin cover, if you prefer.
• They stay on your kitchen bench, in a position that is warm but not too hot, and no direct sunlight. (I wrap a teatowel around mine). 
• Each day you strain the grains out and put them into a clean glass jar with new milk. (You may need to leave them more or less than 24 hours, depending on the warmth and health of your grains. In Summer, I have found 12 hours means a good bodied kefir, and not too sour).
• The strained liquids can be drunk straight up, or used in smoothies.
• You can also make a thicker 'kefir cheese' product, which is like yoghurt, sour cream or cream cheese. Pour the strained milk kefir into a coffee filter (or layers of muslin), which is held inside a sieve, and put them over a bowl, which will catch the whey as it seperates from the 'cheese'. Leave the bowl & sieve in the fridge until the desired thickness/ dryness is reached (overnight is OK).
• You can use kefir or the kefir cheese/ yoghurt in cooking, like naan bread, cakes, but I believe that heat destroys the good stuff though.
• You can second ferment milk kefir, which I tried once using lemon rind, which was nice enough. I have also tried adding vanilla bean to the fermenting milk kefir, for a lovely flavour, which then makes a really great kefir yoghurt/ cheese too!

Basic Water Kefir Instructions

• In a clean (not-warm-or-hot) jar, add a cup of filtered or Spring water, and 1 tablespoon of sugar (raw, rapadura, palm sugar, castor) and stir to dissolve.
• Then add about 1 tablespoons worth of grains.
• Put a lid on (they don't need to breathe, but you can use a mesh or muslin cover apparently, without problem).
• They stay on your kitchen bench, or in a position that is warm but not too hot, and no direct sunlight.
• Each day (more or less than 24 hours, depending on the warmth and health of your grains) you strain the grains out and put them into a clean glass jar with new sugar-water.
• You can experiment with flavours in a second ferment, or use any excess grains you have grown to try experimenting with flavours, but it is a good idea to keep a basic plain sugar-water kefir ferment alive at the same time.
• One of the companies I bought from said there was no need to add anything else other than sugar-water, but some recipes use dried fruit (no sulphur), dried egg shell or coral, molasses and bicarb. I have so far found that the water kefir grains are multiplying when I use only fresh sugar-water each day, and a pinch of bicarb about once a week. This must be providing them with enough minerals and nutrition to grow their colonies!

What is Second Fermenting?

We’ve found that the water kefir after the first ferment is a little sour (though my husband likes it) so we mix the strained water kefir liquid with preservative-free juice and second-ferment it on the bench top (allowing the good stuff in the liquid to keep feeding and growing, even though the main grains are not in there anymore). This produces a nicer flavoured, not sweet, fizzy drink. With second fermenting, make sure the juice you use is preservative-free, any fruit or rinds are organic, and dried fruits are sulphur-free. Otherwise you may be inhibiting the fermentation process. We’ve had such good growth from the water kefir grains (if they get enough minerals from the food, the colonies keep growing) that I now have the basic water kefir fermenting at all times, but have started some flavoured first-ferments too, like ginger and lemon. You can second ferment the milk kefir, using flavours or lemon rind and letting it sit for longer on the benchtop.

Excess Grains/ Preserving Grains

I found the water kefir grains started multiplying quickly, and now the milk kefir grains are growing too. Apparently, you can swallow/ eat the grains, feed them to your pets or compost, or you can share them around. Perhaps try preserving some by freezing/ fridging or even dehydrating them, so you will always have a source, esp. if your main ones die for some reason. I haven't tried preserving any (see links below for how to do that), but we have been adding some to our second ferment water kefirs and then I drink them! If you need to go away, or want a break from kefir, you can put them in the fridge in some sugar-water or fresh milk, and this keeps them alive, without growing, apparently!

Warnings & Tips

I am not an expert on this! Please do your own research, but here are some things I have learnt.

• There are always food safety concerns in lacto-fermenting, so use clean equipment, wash your hands and if in doubt, throw it out... go by appearance & smell (it smells a little sour, but only like sour cream, really).
• The kefirs don't like heat, which can destroy them. You can apparently warm the milk to get them culturing faster in Winter, but no hot jars.
• Limit the amount of metal they come in contact with (it can 'leach' into the kefirs over time & be toxic to your health). Stainless Steel is apparently not as 'reactive' as other metals.
• In regards to lids or covers for your jars for first ferment, some people say to use a lid, whilst others say they use a breatheable cover (mesh fabric, muslin, coffee filter) to keep out bugs & flies. They don't need to 'breathe', but carbonation will occur, so you don't want anything to explode! If you have Pickl-Its or brewing airlock equipment, you could use those. (If you want them bubbles to stay in during second fermentation, you can apparently use a good quality bottle with a swing-top lid, like Grolsch).
• Don't use water that contains fluoride or chlorine, which inhibit the fermenting & growth of the kefir grains. We have a water purifier but it doesn't remove fluoride, so we have been using Spring water, but hope to put our own rainwater in our water purifier to use that.
• You can’t go too crazy overindulging in kefirs at the start, apparently, because you can feel unwell from any toxins being released into your body when the good bacterias knock out the bad ones! We haven’t really had that, as we took it slow.
• There is also a certain low percentage of alcohol that can be produced, esp. with the second ferments, but I am researching that more, so I can feel safe giving it to the kids.

Milk kefir on the left, and Water Kefir on the right. I am using Fowlers Vacola jars with Snap On FV lids.

 The water kefir grains are clear-ish grains, which may float, esp. as the kefir becomes bubbly as it ferments.

I started by using rapadura sugar, which gave the water kefir a brown tint, but have been using raw sugar and it has become much lighter, as in the photo above.

Here is the milk kefir after it has been fermenting on the bench top for about 24 hours. It can become quite curdled, as in the whey and curds seperate. You can pour the whey off and use it in lacto-fermenting or other cooking. I shake it gently back together, as it makes straining the grains easier if the milk kefir liquid is more liquid.

Here is the strained milk kefir (left), in the middle is a tall jar which had second-ferment water kefir (I put any second-ferments in tall jars so I know which is which!), and some milk kefir being strained through a coffee filter  & sieve/ strainer to make a kefir 'cheese', which is like sour cream or a tart cream cheese.

More information

I am very new to this, so please check these links below for more information. There is a lot of information about kefir out there, some of it conflicting or overwhelming! I bought the Cultured Food Life book by Donna Schwenk, which covers milk kefir, kombucha, sprouted flours and LF vegetables. She has information about kefir on her website.

More information about Kefirs can be found here:

I Love Water Kefir (Facebook page)

Cultures for Health

Nourished Kitchen 

How to Make Coconut Milk Kefir