Kefir, once also known as champagne milk, is a delicious and healthy fermented milk drink. While its rival, yogurt, requires a constant source of heat for fermentation, kefir is easy to ferment at room temperature. A prerequisite for obtaining kefir is the presence of a special sourdough, similar to elastic cauliflower inflorescences. These are colonies of yeast and bacteria (lactobacilli) living in symbiosis.
It is necessary
- - 2 tablespoons of kefir sourdough;
- - 1 liter of milk;
- - 3 liter glass jar;
- - gauze;
- - rubber;
- - paper coffee filter;
- - wooden stirring paddle.
Instructions
Step 1
Not any milk is suitable for making kefir. Pasteurized milk is an acceptable option, but sterilized milk will not work. Also, oddly enough, nothing will come out of whole raw milk - it has too many of its own bacteria that will prevent cultured milk from developing. If you want to make kefir from fresh milk, you will have to boil it first.
Step 2
Prepare a 3 liter glass jar. You should not cook kefir in a metal container - it can damage the starter culture, but if you have a plastic container of the same volume, use it.
Step 3
Pour the milk into a jar. Add the leaven. Stir gently with a wooden or plastic spatula. It is also important here to avoid metal objects - spoons, whisks, etc. Cover the neck of the jar with gauze or, if you don't have one, with a thin paper napkin. Secure with an elastic band.
Step 4
Leave the jar at room temperature (18-24 ° C) for 12-48 hours. Check every 12 hours to see if the drink is ready. In warmer, but not hot, rooms, kefir is fermented faster, in cold rooms - slower. Kefir fungus is a living organism, so it is impossible to predict how quickly it will ferment milk.
Step 5
Carefully watch that there are no bread, kombucha, fruits and vegetables a few tens of centimeters from the fermenting milk, in order to avoid a situation where different strains of bacteria interfere with each other's development.
Step 6
Also carefully monitor the room temperature. It should not fluctuate more than a few degrees. Open windows, fans, air conditioners are excluded in the room where you want to get kefir. If you can put the can of fermenting milk in the oven and leave the light on for the entire fermentation time, you will create ideal conditions for the drink.
Step 7
The finished drink looks like thick milk, it has a fresh sour smell. If the finished kefir is noticeably separated into whey and curd, you have overexposed it. Strain the finished kefir through a frequent plastic colander or gauze to drain the kefir mushroom and reuse it.
