Yes, I looked up one time and there's a lady near me who offers live grains in a sterilized mason jar .. prefers to meet at the police station parking lot for safety :thup:. I haven't followed up on it yet, because of the reasons you and the article cited. I just can't imagine consuming liters and liters of kefir day after day, week after week. The powdered culture allows me to make a couple of batches and then take a break for a long stretch, without having to feed and fuss over a jar of white blobs.

I already have a cat who demands feeding and fussing day in and day out, that's enough for me thanks :lol: :lol:

While lying in bed last night my stomach felt strange. All night, even all of this morning, until I ate a very early lunch about an hour ago. Could have been a bad HB egg, or the pork chop, but this was also my first time trying kefir - so I'm going to put it aside for now. Maybe it was the goat's milk? Don't know. Going to have to keep investigating.

I only make kefir about once or twice a week -- the rest of the time the grains are stored in milk in the fridge. Sometimes when a jar is empty I simply add more milk, shake and ferment till done and it turns out excellent. Occasionally I do a back to back ferment to strengthen the grains, but I still have about the same amount of actual grains I started with, perhaps a little more -- but it's not overwhelming.

So it's a better product than dried and I don't have to keep ordering more or fretting about storing powdered culture. Kefir should be similar to a sourdough culture in resiliency.

No more goat milk. I got some grains and am on the third batch using whole milk and I fermented for about 24 hours - great instruction letter from the amazon seller (MrandMrsKefir) and they are definitely alive and kicking! Lots of curds so I emailed them and they said to wash out the curds, avoid excessive curd build-up. Going to cut down on fermentation time and see how the taste changes. The letter says you'll get perfected kefir after 6-8 batches. Experimentation continues.

Found these:

Kefir & the Atkins Diet 7-18-2017

How Many Calories in Kefir?

Fermentation reduces the calories

Sugar contains 4 calories per gram. One cup of whole milk has 12 grams of sugar (lactose) and 148 calories. Fermentation reduces the calories by 44 since most of the 12 grams of sugars will be gone. This would make whole milk per cup, 104 calories versus 148 calories, and the sugar count would then be 1 gram or less, depending on how long you ferment it. There will be fewer calories in lower fat milk, but this is a general rule. The microbes eat the milk sugars as a food source and you get probiotics instead of sugar. Pretty cool, don’t you think?

:)

Oh wow, good for you :thup: I'm still open to getting some real kefir grains .. Hey, if it doesn't pan out it's only $10 plus time to meet up locally with the seller.

re - goat milk ... Believe it or not, but I've found that full fat (3.8 to 4%) goat milk is harder to digest (and more "goaty" tasting) than 2%. Just my experience and opinion. The 2% is not higher in carbs, it's the same as full fat.

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I still have some powdered kefir culture starter .. planning to experiment with a liter of commercial unsweetened cashew milk + 10g glucose (pure dextrose from a beer/wine craft store .. not sucrose table sugar which is glucose + fructose). It's needed to feed the kefir bacteria and yeast cultures. Will report back how it turns out :idea:


Love this discussion :heart:

In the first link kefir and atkins, the kefir is listed at 9 carbs because of 3 g fiber. Milk itself is 0 fiber. Im wondering how the grains create a fiber? If you ever find out , I am curious to know.

That must be a mistake.

ya, a big one, lol

Only thing that comes to mind is inulin. How is that made? and counted?

lol they probably used a wooden spoon.

:lol:

Epiphany. Moved my fermentation staging area (lol where I put the kefir jar) downstairs where it's a couple degrees cooler. The heat was speeding up the process - and I want to slow it down. Batch #4 started. Will try a half cup of batch #3 at lunch in a few hours. Here's a pic of the grains after removing (most of) the curds yesterday.

:)

Arent they the funniest looking grains.

Like tapioca pudding!!!

In the beginning mine was more creamy and several weeks later it became more fizzy and tart. I think the early batches had a higher carb count with more sugar still there.

Those 'grains' look like mine when I first started. Later they get more white even if you wash them. Not good to wash too often, and never use chlorinated water!

I tossed the 1st few fermentations till it looked and tasted right.

Good to know - thanks! I've been washing everything that touches the utensils and containers with filtered water.

Started batch #4 this morning. Waiting for lunch to try batch #3.

When you take a break from making kefir, and store grains in milk - in the refrigerator, do you also keep the lid loose? That's what I've been doing. I think tight lids make for carbonation.

So what does it look like when it's "right"??

Like I said mine went from creamy a little like yoghurt at first to fizzy and tart weeks later. I started off with just a loose top sitting on top of the jar to using a coffee filter with a rubber band around the rim. I did rinse them with spring water a time or two in between.

I still have my grains in some milk in the far back of the refrigerator so maybe I'll try again if it's still alive but I became really effected by the level of yeast/fungus and I have never had any yeast infections that I know of so IDK why that happened....