The Kefir and Yogurt Thread

Yvonne Smith

Yvonne Smith

Greeter
Staff member
I seem to go in spurts of doing things and taking care of my health. Lately, I have not been making any kefir, and the yogurt, only sporadically. I think part of that is because I drink it cold, and in cold weather, I don’t enjoy cold drinks and want the comfort of hot coffee or tea instead,.
Anyway, I think it is time for me to add kefir back into my life again, and I have a quart of it sitting out to culture until tomorrow and then I can start drinking some again, and get the health benefits from it.
I just got a new book called “The Kefir Codex”, and since it is snowing heavily outside, today is a stay warm and read kind of a day for me.
 
I don't know if I would trust yogurt or kefir that I made myself. Although I eat yogurt, I only like the light kinds, like Yoplait, and don't like thinking about it.
 
Marie Mallory said:
Although I'd like to try to make it, not able now to do much.
I do eat store bought yogurt daily.
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Marie, there is not much you need to do to make kefir. Although you can do it with getting the grains, and that has a lot more probiotic strains; just using a starter from the store will work fine , too.

You need whole milk, and a bottle of Lifeway plain unsweetened kefir from the grocery store.
Put about a half cup of kefir in a quart jar, add milk, shake or stir it to mix, and let it sit in a warm place until it starts to thicken up. Depending on how warm it is, you should have kefir over night or at least in 24 hours.

It will taste a little sour, like buttermilk , and you can add it to smoothies, protein drink, or just drink it like you would drink milk or buttermilk . You can do the same thing to make your own buttermilk.
Just buy a pint or quart from the store, add a half cup to a quart jar, fill it up with whole milk, and let it sit in a warm place overnight. The next day, it will have cultured into buttermilk.

You can make yogurt the same way, but the yogurt needs a warmer temperature, around 100F, to culture, where kefir and buttermilk will both culture at room temperature. Just use plain unsweetened yogurt and whole milk, but it needs to stay warmer than room temperature.

I have a little heating pad that is for making sourdough, and it works great to culture yogurt, too. I also use it for kefir when it is cold because you can set the temperature you want it to be.

 
Yvonne Smith said:
Marie, there is not much you need to do to make kefir. Although you can do it with getting the grains, and that has a lot more probiotic strains; just using a starter from the store will work fine , too.

You need whole milk, and a bottle of Lifeway plain unsweetened kefir from the grocery store.
Put about a half cup of kefir in a quart jar, add milk, shake or stir it to mix, and let it sit in a warm place until it starts to thicken up. Depending on how warm it is, you should have kefir over night or at least in 24 hours.

It will taste a little sour, like buttermilk , and you can add it to smoothies, protein drink, or just drink it like you would drink milk or buttermilk . You can do the same thing to make your own buttermilk.
Just buy a pint or quart from the store, add a half cup to a quart jar, fill it up with whole milk, and let it sit in a warm place overnight. The next day, it will have cultured into buttermilk.

You can make yogurt the same way, but the yogurt needs a warmer temperature, around 100F, to culture, where kefir and buttermilk will both culture at room temperature.
I have a little heating pad that is for making sourdough, and it works great to culture yogurt, too. I use it for kefir when it is cold because you can set the temperature you want it to be.

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Yvonne I do plan on making it, just right now I'm not thinking too good, I'm trying to walk as much as I can on walker ,doctor said keep moving which I do often.
April 7th I'll know about xray, blood work and urine.
 
I buy kefir to take my probiotics with. I've read that probiotics have a better chance of surviving the digestive track if taken with dairy...and kefir also has its own probiotics. Kefir also should help prevent oxalate kidney stones, since the oxalate binds to calcium. I should be drinking milk with my meals but I don't like milk.
 
Shirley Martin said:
I made and drank kefir for a couple of years. It was good and good for me. I somehow got out of the habit. I froze some grains. Now that summer is coming on, I'll see if my grains are still alive. It seems especially good in the summer.
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I froze milk kefir grains 12. Months or so ago ..but I think they are dead cause I’ve been trying to revive them without success for 2 weeks changing the milk every other day , so I might have to buy some @Shirley Martin
I actually dried milk kefir grains….ive got some in the fridge …so I wonder if my dried ones will come back to life ?
 
Kate Ellery said:
I froze milk kefir grains 12. Months or so ago ..but I think they are dead cause I’ve been trying to revive them without success for 2 weeks changing the milk every other day , so I might have to buy some @Shirley Martin
I actually dried milk kefir grains….ive got some in the fridge …so I wonder if my dried ones will come back to life ?
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One way I've tested probiotics to see if they have active critters in them is to put them in a shallow bowl with a little milk (a few tablespoons), and let it sit out at room temp. If there are live critters, the milk will set like yogurt. It may take 6 hours, it may take a day and a half. It all depends on the strain and on how many live cultures there are. I've yet to have any fail, but there's no way to tell (a) how many live cultures there are or (b) what strain they are. It's sort of a Pass/Fail as to whether or not there are any live cultures...kind of like proofing yeast.
 
It has been too hot to make kefir this summer. The heat in the house cultures it too fast, and it ends up being really sour by the time it thickens up.
Now, the nights are just a little cooler, si I am making kefir again, and starting it out later in the day and leaving it sit to culture overnight on the counter.
It is turning out just right, so I am going to keep making it. When winter gets here, the kitchen is too cold, so the kefir can sit there for a couple of days and not ever get thick, so sometimes I make it in the yogurt maker instead, because I can set the temperature for that.
This morning, I had kefir with my cereal for breakfast.
 
Yvonne Smith said:
It has been too hot to make kefir this summer. The heat in the house cultures it too fast, and it ends up being really sour by the time it thickens up.
Now, the nights are just a little cooler, si I am making kefir again, and starting it out later in the day and leaving it sit to culture overnight on the counter.
It is turning out just right, so I am going to keep making it. When winter gets here, the kitchen is too cold, so the kefir can sit there for a couple of days and not ever get thick, so sometimes I make it in the yogurt maker instead, because I can set the temperature for that.
This morning, I had kefir with my cereal for breakfast.
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I've been drinking the flavored store-bought stuff, mainly because I read that taking probiotics with dairy helps them survive the digestive tract. But I do worry that--like flavored yogurt--the sugars may negate the benefit.
 
John Brunner said:
I've been drinking the flavored store-bought stuff, mainly because I read that taking probiotics with dairy helps them survive the digestive tract. But I do worry that--like flavored yogurt--the sugars may negate the benefit.
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Dove soap bars are low in calories and good for your system. Duck and run!
 
John Brunner said:
I've been drinking the flavored store-bought stuff, mainly because I read that taking probiotics with dairy helps them survive the digestive tract. But I do worry that--like flavored yogurt--the sugars may negate the benefit.
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John, Kefir is probably the simplest thing in the whole world to make, and it has MUCH more probiotics when you make it than the stuff from the store.
That has all been barely cultured, then pasturized and then probiotics added, so not much different that buying those little dry capsules,

I use powdered starter for kefir, because I just do not make enough of it often enough to use the regular grains, and I get overwhelmed each time i try that.
Yogourmet has good starter packets, and you can make the first quart from the packet, and then save abut a third of a cup to start the next batch, so for each packet, you will be able to make 4-5 quarts of kefir and then you need a fresh packet.

I also like the Coolinario kefir starter which has the L.Reuteri probiotic culture in it. The only issue I have is working with the temperature inside of our house, being either way too cold or hot.
As long as you have a fairly constant temperature, you can have kefir in 12-24 hours, depending on how warm the house is, and how thick you want the kefir.

Then, you can sweeten it with fruit, fruit juice, or whatever sweetener you prefer, and not just be getting a sugared drink that resembles kefir.
 
Now that the weather is getting colder, I am going to switch over from making kefir to making probiotic yogurt. By using the yogurt maker, I can control the temperature as it cultures. It is too cold now to leave the kefir on the counter overnight to culture.
I have the Ultimate Health yogurt maker, which has an adjustable setting for both time and temperature. I got it to make the L. Reuteri probiotic, which was taking a 36 hour culture at 100F.

Now, they have capsules with more of the probiotics in them, so they can culture in 24 hours instead of 36. Ultimate Health has just come out with a new capsule called “Gut Restore”, which has the three main probiotics loaded into the capsules.
You can either swallow the capsules as a probiotic supplement, or culture them into probiotic yogurt, which is how I will be using them once they arrive.

Here is the link that explains the benefits of these capsules, and I ordered mine from Amazon.

 
Yvonne Smith said:
Now that the weather is getting colder, I am going to switch over from making kefir to making probiotic yogurt. By using the yogurt maker, I can control the temperature as it cultures. It is too cold now to leave the kefir on the counter overnight to culture.
I have the Ultimate Health yogurt maker, which has an adjustable setting for both time and temperature. I got it to make the L. Reuteri probiotic, which was taking a 36 hour culture at 100F.

Now, they have capsules with more of the probiotics in them, so they can culture in 24 hours instead of 36. Ultimate Health has just come out with a new capsule called “Gut Restore”, which has the three main probiotics loaded into the capsules.
You can either swallow the capsules as a probiotic supplement, or culture them into probiotic yogurt, which is how I will be using them once they arrive.

Here is the link that explains the benefits of these capsules, and I ordered mine from Amazon.

Click to expand...

I recall your posting about L. Reuteri and the gut doctor making yogurt to boost the numbers. It was not in any of the capsules I was taking, so I added it to my regime.

I've not encountered the L. gasseri and B. coagulans in any of the probiotics that I take, but at some point in time in my research they made their way onto a list I keep of identified beneficial bacteria strains and their benefit, where I could find identified benefits. (My list only contains 57 strains, while the average American has roughly 250 strains in their guts and some foraging tribes have over 450.) I built my regime around that list, taking probiotics that provide a benefit I wanted.

I see that B. coagulans is a general gut health bacteria, where L. gasseri is the same plus it's beneficial to female reproduction organs. Culturing probiotics in a yogurt is a good idea, not just to boost their numbers but to help them survive the gut, since research indicates that taking probiotics with dairy helps them survive the digestive tract (which itself is a topic of debate.) That's one reason I take mine with the off-the-shelf kefirs, since they are a dairy product.

It's a fascinating topic on so many levels. For example, that foraging tribe (the Aborigines) have a high number of bacteria, but I doubt that they get it from fermented foods (I may be wrong.) I'm assuming that they do get a lot of different types of fibers in their diet, but it begs the question as to where their dietary beneficial bacteria come from in the first place. It could be that humans naturally have a large variety and our western diets of refined carbs/sugars inhibit their growth.

I've had a micronutrient blood analysis done to measure the vitamins and minerals in my system, and have thought of having a fecal analysis done for my bacteria levels, but have not researched the availability of such a test outside of having it prescribed by a doctor to diagnose gut issues. In some instances, fecal transplants are performed for folks with poor gut biomes, but that means that donors with a healthy gut biome must be identified in the first place.
 
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