Where Does Milk Kefir Come From?

Kefir is considered to be the oldest known fermented milk drink.  It's use has been well known for over 2,000 years in certain areas of the world.  One of the most documented areas of its historical importance stems from the Caucasus Mountains in Eurasia between the Black and Caspian sea.  Those who grew up in the area share a belief with each generation that the kefir grains were a sort of "manna" sent to them by God.  It's also believed that Mohammad, the prophet bestowed his blessings upon these grains, adding to their sacredness to the locals.

These sacred grains were not only a source of health and vitality to those who regularly consumed them, but also an indication of wealth.  Each particular tribe had a slight variation of the grains, which they held onto, passing down to each subsequent generation.  The tribes themselves would also trade grains amongst themselves, but NEVER to foreigners or those simply passing through.  In fact, this was sort of their "Best Kept Secret".  And it remained a secret from outsiders for most of history.

You may be wondering then...how do we have access to them today?  Did some scientist recreate them and share them with the world?  Of course not.  If someone was able to recreate them in some way shape or form, every man woman and child would be able to buy their product at the local grocery store.  And I assure you if they could recreate it for sale, it wouldn't be anything like the original, nor would it be able to reproduce itself for an unsaid period of time.  Take a look at most commercial probiotic cultures for sale  at your local stores.  Notice how they "Expire" around batch 6-7...

So, if scientist have not be able to even come close to recreating these magical "grains", then how have they come to be in the hands of those searching for better health?  You could say that nature always finds a way.  A woman by the name of Irina Sakharova may just have been the key.  She was the sister of the Blandov's brothers, who were cheese makers in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century.  The Russian Physicians' Society at the time really wanted to have access to these grains for study.  So what did they do?  They contracted these two cheese makers to get a hold of the grains.  What was their idea?  To use the looks of their charming sister.

Irina was to charm the Caucasian Prince Bek-Mirza Barchorov into letting her take some of their cherished kefir grains for herself.  The prince wanted Irina, but the idea of giving her grains was preposterous to him.  After refusing to become his bride, she was held captive.  In some time, the brothers that sent her on this impossible mission were at her rescue.  From here, the case was brought against the court with the additional help of the Physicians' society.

The Czar's court ordered reparations to Irina for the distress she was caused by the Prince.  After being offered riches in the form of local jewels and gold, which the Price had in possession Irina refused, She demanded that she receive kefir grains instead. 

Moscow 1908 - It was here for the first time in history, that these magical grains escaped the Caucasus Mountains with the help of Irina.  Once in Moscow, these grains were used for medicinal purposes to treat a number ailments including tuberculosis with tremendous success.

Irinas hard work was commended in 1973 at the age of 85, with a sort of thank you letter from the Minister of the Food Industry of the Former USSR.

And from the very strain she brought back, stems the grains we now find being cultivated all around the world.

Day 6 (Complete Curd & Whey Separation)

Here's a photo of the curd and whey separation on Day 6.  The night before, the whey had been accumulating on top and the curd on the bottom.  When I woke up this morning however, I discovered that the curd had finally floated to the top.  This batch was pretty thick still yesterday and wasn't finely strained before fermenting for the second 24 hours period.

Because of this, tiny bits of curd / kefir grains made their way into the batch.  The image shows that the process is definitely working now.  The only problem I have is the actual smell of the kefir and the curd / whey.  I had been using one brand of store bought milk when I started the process and switched when I ran low.  I had wanted to buy some milk in glass containers to reuse when I visit the raw milk farm.  I thought the milk in here would be just fine.  It wasn't.  I went to take a sip with something I was eating and almost threw up. 

Some people may not notice taste variations in their milk, but this was absurd.  I usually avoid Crowley milk because of this, but this was Byrne Dairy.  The weird thing is that I purchased another gallon of Byrne Dairy today and it is perfectly fine.  No distinctively bothersome odors as the glass approaches your face.  In fact, today's milk tasted great!  Although I'm only buying from the store until I'm ready to introduce the grains to Raw again.

So long story short, the milk I used the last few days has given the Kefir a strange smell.  Not appealing to me anyways, I just felt like I was drinking drugged cow milk mixed with blood and puss.  Since the grains are doing their job well, I fed them the new milk I purchased today.  The one WITHOUT any off smells to it.

HOWEVER...Because I was VERY curious what it may taste like.  I dipped a spoon into it.  I thought it would act like whipped cream and lend itself to an easy gentle pouring onto my spoon.  Nope, it was more like cream cheese instead.  I decided to pour the liquid whey off from the jar through a fine mesh strainer as the curd seemed to stay separated on top.  Then I scooped out the curd and put it into a small cup.  The curd didn't have too much of a taste.  I added some flavoring to give it a try.

After mixing a garlic & herb blend to it I gave it a try.  It was surprisingly good.  It needed flavoring for sure but it was something I could definitely eat again.  It was like a very dry cream cheese.  Or, if crumbled feta cheese was softer and more aerated, that's what it would be like.  It spread easy, but was rather dry.  I could have added liquid to make it creamy, but I didn't mind the consistency at all.  It was nice.  Although I do miss the overpowering yogurt scent I had created a few days earlier with a different brand of milk.  My hope is that after the yeasts readjust again, that almost bitter taste / smell will disappear.

After trying out the curd with moderate satisfaction, I also indulged in the whey liquid.  It's difficult to describe the taste of it at this point.  I can't say vinigery, as that doesn't do it justice.  I'd say bitter, or strong, but those don't say much either.  So until I can properly describe how it taste, I will say it's not worthy of consumption at this point.  I did however attempt to drink a bit of it.  I added some cranberry juice to a cup and tried to take it down.  It was difficult and I didn't get very far.  I believe I will discard that portion for now but I will save and finish the garlic curd spread for sure.

I also think that I may begin to lessen the fermentation time.  I have been doing a standard 24 hours with the grains and 24 hours without.  This may be too much now.  On the plus side, the 16 oz I used yesterday seems to have been a good amount for the grains.  It was still mostly liquid and strained easily.  First I strained it through a pasta strainer (large hole) and then I strained the liquid a second time through the fine mesh to get any extra clumps out. 

You'll notice that from day 3 to day 4 a very large increase in kefir grains / curds took place in the first fermentation jar.  Then they clumped together more losing more and more each consecutive day. 

I will try not to interrupt them at this point by separating them from any attached curd.  I will try and wait until they have grown considerably to do this.

Back on the shelf for yet another day.  Hoping that the yogurt smell will return soon.  The milk I used was a bad idea.  I thought that because I didn't want to drink it that my grains might.  I don't think it was their cup of tea either.  Lesson learned, don't switch your milk unless you have to, and don't feed the grains milk that smells like S%#t.

Milk Kefir Growth (Days1 - 7) YouTube Video

Day 5 (Need More Milk)

Again, the kefir fermented the 4th Batch of milk rather quickly in only 24 hours.  I had to stir the milk very well to make it liquid enough to strain.  I am no longer able to use the fine mesh strainer.  I will save that for water kefir grains.

As I need to go buy a larger diameter strainer for the milk kefir, I had to find something else.  Luckily we have several pasta strainers at the house.  They have a much larger hole opening but it seemed to work just fine.

It strained rather quickly as well.  Here is what remained after straining.  The clump seems to be doing well so far.  It doesn't smell sweet and aromatic like the batch that sat an extra 24 hours post kefir grain fermentation.

Some people will directly consume the liquid from the grains at 24 hours.  This isn't for me.  I prefer the kefir to have a sweet smell and a higher nutrition content.  Leaving the fermented milk to sit for at least another 24 hours at room temperature should do the trick.

As the milk had become very clumpy again in such a short period of time, I decided to up it again.  This time I refilled the jar with 16 oz of milk.

You can see just above the kefir level on the jar with the green cover that just from walking downstairs with it, it had stuck to the sides.  It was thick and had begun to separate a bit on top with whey liquid settling.

For reference (Blue cloth) contains the milk kefir grains with a fresh batch of milk.  (Green cloth) contains the milk kefir w/o grains for their second day of fermenting.

Day 4 (Beginning to Work)

Day 4 seems to have produced some promising results.  Batch number 2 at the 48 hour mark had the most amazing smell to it.  It was like a very sweet yogurt.  It reminded me of the Trix Yogurt or the Gogurt I used to eat growing up.  The smell was amazing.

Some interesting things have begun to occur with this batch as well.  For starters, BOTH jars had fermented to a point of becoming clumpy and very difficult to strain.

Here is a photo of Batch 2 after 48 hours of fermentation (24 hours with kefir grains & 24 hours without the grains).  Notice the thick layer on top.  The smell of this was fantastic.  It almost made me want to consume it.  But allas, I won't be doing that for a while yet.

Here is a closer view of Batch 2.  The entire thing was creamy throughout.  The top layer is more of a cream color compared the to rest which still maintained it's milk appearance in color.

It looked and smelled exactly like yogurt.  This is a sign that the kefir grains are gaining in both strength and numbers.  This also tells me that I will need to increase the amount of milk I have been providing for them to feed off.

Became rather surprised when I attempted to strain the milk from the jar with the kefir in it.  As you can see from the photo, this wasn't easy.  The entire jar had the consistency of very small curd cottage cheese, only a little runnier.  This presented a dilemma for me.  I needed to strain as much of it as I could so that I only had the clumpy mixture left over to add back.

To solve this problem, I used an additional 4 oz of milk to help with the straining.  First I poured the milk into the jar with the kefir and mixed it well.  Then I poured small amounts of the fluid into the strainer and moved it around to drain off as much liquid as possible.  Then I rinsed and dried the strainer after each pour.

Once I had strained as much liquid from the grains as I could, I cleaned out the jar they had been in previously and added the contents back.  What your seeing in this photo isn't an overgrowth of milk kefir grains from day 3 to day 4 alone.  It is also curd, which has fermented and attached itself to the existing kefir grains.

The grains themselves are still fairly small at this time and I don't want to interrupt the process too much.  I drained off all the liquid I could and put the entire contents back into the jar instead of trying to break it apart and separate it into curd and kefir grains.

Either way, they are working very hard to have completely thickened the milk in only 24 hours time.  Some changes now need to be made.

Here is what the contents now look like after they have been added back to the jar.  Looks just like cottage cheese to me.

After returning the kefir grains to a clean jar, I measured out 8 oz of milk.  This is double what I have been using.  I then measured out an additional 4 oz for a total of 12 oz added back to the kefir.  This will hopefully give me a slight buffer and prevent such overgrowth of curd from happening in the first jar.  I would love to see that happening in the second jar but not the jar with the milk kefir grains present.

As I had to add more milk to the contents of batch 3 to make it liquid enough to even pour, I disposed of the contents afterward.

I could have allowed them to ferment in the second jar with the addition of 4 oz fresh cold milk but decided at this point I would focus on the newest batch instead.

We can see now that the process is beginning to speed up.  I want to see now how the grains will perform with 12 oz of milk instead of only 4 oz.

My hope is that the first jar will remain fluid enough to pour nicely into the second jar for more fermentation after 24 hours.  I would like to separate some of the curd from the kefir grains fairly soon.  Hopefully the extra milk will help this to happen.  I have been agitating the grains and milk 2X during fermentation.  Once at the 8 hour mark and again once upon waking in the morning.

Milk Kefir Growth (Days 1 - 7) Images

Day 3 (Clean 2nd Fermentation Jar)

No curd or whey separation so far.  It can take several day or more for the whey to begin to separate between the 24 and 48 hour time frame. 

Once the milk kefir grains have grown more in size, they will have a stronger effect on the milk during the 1st 24 hours.

One of my fears was the notorious smell of rotting milk.  So far there hasn't been any offensive odors produced. 

I even took a close smell of the milk that had fermented for 48 hours before dumping it down the drain.  The only smell it gave off was that of Elmer's glue with an ever so subtle sour aroma.

Once the milk had been dumped into the sink, I noticed the beginnings of milk build up around the top of the 4 oz marker.  I also noticed that as I was dumping the milk, a thin film had started to develop on the bottom of the jar below the milk.

To rinse the jar out I simply used a small drop of joy, a scrub brush and some hot water.  As long as the jar is rinsed completely and then dried completely, neither the joy or tap water will have any negative effects on the fermentation process.  I will be cleaning the 2nd fermentation jar (The one without the kefir grains) on a daily basis prior to introducing the next batch.

Once the 2nd jar had been cleaned and dried, I was ready to again transfer the milk containing the kefir grains.  Before the grains are strained, the milk and grains are gently swirled until the milk has been properly mixed throughout.

Here is an image of the grains that made it onto the strainer during the pour.  There again appears to be a lot more of them today that yesterday.  They seem to be doing well so far. 

A large portion of them still remain in the jar during the pour.  Several also cling to the side of the jar during the process.

To get any of the extra kefir grains that make their way to the side of the jar, I simply use a plastic knife to push them back down to the bottom.  I have not cleaned this jar yet as I want to allow the kefir to grow more before I do so.  The small amount of milk stains at the 4 oz level on this jar aren't bothering me yet.  Cleaning the jar out to replace the grains in at this time would be more of a visual cleaning that one with a purpose.

Here is an image of the kefir grains on Day 3.  You can still see a small amount of milk remaining in the jar each time.  A few of the grains have begun to clump together into thicker groupings.

Back on the shelf until tomorrow.  I hope to start seeing some curd and whey separation by the end of the week.  Only time will tell...