How to Make Milk Kefir - A Probiotics Rich Fermented Drink for Good Gut Health

hi sweet friends I'm Mary from Mary's Nest comm where I share traditional recipes for making nutrient-dense foods using simple ingredients and today I want to show you how to make milk kefir or milk kefir depending on how you say it but whatever way you say it it's the champagne of milk the nice thing about milk kefir is that you don't have to warm the milk like you do when you make yogurt you can just use milk right out of your refrigerator and pour it over your your grains which I'll show you in a minute and you're all set now before we get started I just want to say that if you're new to my channel welcome and if you're interested in learning more about traditional foods cooking I hope you'll subscribe to my channel and be sure to click on the notification bell that'll let you know every time I upload a new video all righty well let's get started with this first of all this is a batch of kefir that I made and just let it sit overnight and it's become quite nicely thickened and what I'm gonna do is I just like to mix it just a little bit like this because there's sometimes there's a little bit of a separation the the cream comes to the top I made this with milk that was neither pasteurized nor homogenized so the cream kinda rises to the top here it's raw milk from a local farm but the nice thing is you can use pasteurized milk you can use that's not homogenized or you can use pasteurized milk that is homogenized so really any milk that you can find from your grocery store or fit the farmers market or a local farm all of them work wonderfully when making kefir and it improves the digestibility of it it lowers the the sugar content that naturally occurs in milk the lactose and it's usually very agreeable with most people and I'm just gonna pour this out like this I've got a measuring cup here and a strainer now I'm using a plastic strainer here but you can also use a metal strainer some people prefer just to use a plastic strainer they think that the kefir grains don't like to touch the metal I don't really know about that I've used both plastic and metal and I've never had any problem so really whatever you have this should work all righty and while I did I just want to mention was culture this and a what do you call a canning jar and this is one you could use a widemouth canning jar you could use a regular mouth canning jar this is one of those that you normally use like an asparagus and it's straight up straight up and down the same width throughout and I like it I find it very easy to work with but you can use a bowl any kind of drawer you have on hand it's it's very easy and the nice thing about kefir it's just very forgiving alrighty well I've got that all into my strainer now and what I'm going to do is just encourage the kefir or kefir to drain through here and then what we're going to be left with will be the grains and I'll show them to you so you'll know what they look like let me just continue doing this and when I've got it all strained out into my measuring cup I'll bring you back well I think I've gotten all of the kefir strained through the grains and into my measuring cup here so I'm just gonna set this aside for a minute and I want to show you what these grains look like now my grains are very old and over the years I have shared them with friends who wanted to learn about making kefir in their own kitchens and I will tell you that when I decided to start making this no one really knew a lot about kefir and I was in a little some type of chat brook there was the chat group there was no Facebook even back then I think it might have been like America Online of one of those things that I was in a little chat group and we were all talking about the book nourishing traditions by Sally Fallon and how we were all very interested in that and many of us were already making homemade yogurt and getting raw milk from the farm and so on and so forth and we were all learning about this kefir and I said gee I don't have any grains and I have no idea where to get them and one lady said oh I have some and I'll mouse them to you I'll put them in a little milk and put them in a little envelope be a plastic bag in an envelope and mail them to you and I said okay what can I pay for them and she said oh just send me a dollar 25 for the postage and so that's what I did and God blessed my husband because I think he got a real kick out of it that I was ordering something that looked like this from someone I didn't know in another state god bless him well I can say what he's experienced with me over the years with traditional foods cooking but in any event so these are my grains and they grow quite nicely and I'm always happy to to share some with with my friends and I'm trying to think I you know as I mentioned I I made this with raw milk and it has a lot of cream and so there's often a lot of cream that's left on my grains so it's a little difficult to actually see what the actual grain looks like but I'm gonna try to it's almost like and if you're familiar with kefir you've probably heard people tell you that it looks like or even yourself if you have them that it looks like a little bits of cauliflower and that's exactly exactly what it what they look like now what do they feel like they feel like a little gummy bear something like that but they do look very much like little pieces of cauliflower so I just wanted to show you that so you would know what they look like now that said this let me just put this on it oh I'm dripping it around that's okay you know I'm just gonna put this it aside for a minute because I want to show you what the kefir looks like once once it's drained out and I'm just gonna get a glass so I can pour some out for you and a clean spoon because I just want to stir it up a little to incorporate the cream and when I get those things I'll come right back well I've got my milk kefir all stirred up and I'm just pouring some into a glass here so you can see exactly what it looks like as you see it's coating the measuring cup here and I'll use my spoon so you can see it's very very much like almost like buttermilk very similar in consistency I'm just gonna give this a little taste mmm it's delicious I love kefir it's slightly tangy and effervescent and it's the effervescence that has given it the name the champagne of milk and I I've always been in our family I've always been the one who loves to drink milk kefir and I kept trying to convince my son oh you'll enjoy it you'll enjoy it he liked yogurt and various other cultured dairy but he had never really tried kefir I think both he and my husband were a little suspicious of the grains and how I had acquired them years earlier but in any event I he was a teenager and I said come on over try this it's delicious it's the champagne of milk and he just looked at me and he said thanks mama but I don't drink and I always thought that was very cute in any event I think you will enjoy it it's tangy and effervescent and just a lovely a lovely beverage but now that I've strained it and you've seen what it's like I'm gonna show you when you're starting with your own grains exactly how you'll make this and culture it and be able to have some for yourself and your family well the first thing that you want to do when you get ready to make milk kefir at home is decide on what type of jar you're gonna use i usually just make about two cups at a time since I'm really the only one in the family who drinks it so that's the perfect size for me but you can certainly use a larger a larger jar a canning jar a quart size half gallon size but whatever you want and all you have to do is it's so easy you take your grains and I'm just going to use all of these probably don't need all of them but since I have them on the plate and I don't want to get another jar out right now I'm just going to go ahead and put all of these grains in now you don't rinse them this is you just keep reusing them batch after batch you don't want to rinse them with water from the tap because most what if it comes from the tap has chlorine in it that might hurt the grains but I'll let you know that if you decide that you don't want to make kefir every day you can store them in your refrigerator for a little bit in a little bit of filtered water and like spring water and that will keep them fresh and hydrated until you're ready to make a fear again now if you're just gonna go a few days until you make your kefir you can always just store them in a little bit of milk and that that will give them some nutrition but if you're gonna go for long term storage I'll be just a little bit of spring water and a nice cold spot in your refrigerator and kind of let them go to sleep the other option is you can also dehydrate them and now speaking of dehydrated grains that is how you can wind up buying grains because say you say well I'd like to make milk kefir but I don't have any grains there are various options there's a company called cultures for health and they sell dehydrated grains and they'll mail them to you and then when you when they arrive to you you rehydrate them it takes a few days and once they're rehydrated and you rehydrate them in the same way that you would be making milk kefir you cover them with milk room set them in room temperature let them sit for a bit and then strain off the milk the next day and start the process again until you find that the milk is thickening and becoming effervescent then you know they've woken up and are ready to make batch after batch for you there are also places that sell live grains that have not been dehydrated I've seen those I don't know any websites off the top of my head I'll have to look for that and I'll put them below but there are places that sell live grains and we'll mail them to you as my friend that I have met on the internet did for me all those years ago and then the third option is you may just have a friend who's making kefir oh it's very popular today so you may just want to ask around in your social circle if anyone has grains to share they tend to duplicate pretty quickly I guess depending some people's don't do yeah some peoples don't duplicate as fat as quickly as others but some do and so there may be a friend you have who can share some with you but in any event there are various sources that you can get keeper kefir grains from to make kefir so I go back and forth I say it both ways in any event I've got two cups of milk here and now all I'm gonna do is pour this over the grains that's it perfect and again as I had said you know I used a spoon to put them in I've never had any problem over the years whether they touch metal or plastic I've never found it to make any difference if you make kefir or kefir I would be very interested in hearing your thoughts on that you could leave it in the comments below to let me know if you found any significant difference whether you use metal or plastic so that's that you put your lid on just finger tight you know don't it make it particularly tight and then place it somewhere in a warm cozy place in your kitchen that'll be undisturbed and check on it after a few hours depending if you're doing this in the morning check on it in the evening see if it's developed to the thickness and effervescence you like if not you can leave it overnight and then see how how it is to your liking but I think that it usually cultures pretty quickly and I think you're going to enjoy it tremendously now let's talk about this kefir that I made earlier and then I tasted earlier you can take another step with this you can add this to a clean jar put the lid on and set it aside again overnight you know seven or eight hours whatever the case may be and that can be its second culturing and one of them what will happen at that point there it will become even more tangy so it's just a matter of what level of Tang eNOS you like this is perfect for me I often don't do a second culture or ferment whatever the appropriate term is but that you can do that but I just want to let you know that if you do do that you may find that the milk is going to appear on the top and then you're going to have what looks like a clear liquid on the bottom not not quite might have a little bit of a yellow tinge to it it depends and that's basically someway separating out you can just remix that right back in and then and then go ahead and drink it so I hope you'll give kefir a try it's wonderfully nutritious I'm very rich in probiotics excellent for gut health which everyone is talking about today and if you'd like to try another type of cultured dairy I have a video where I show how to make homemade yogurt without a without a yogurt machine you don't have to worry about a yogurt maker whatever it's good you don't have to worry about having that all you need is a bowl and I'll link to that above if you'd like to watch that as well for complete instructions on how to make this milk kefir please visit my website Mary's nest com and if you have any questions or comments please leave them below I'm happy to respond I hope you enjoyed this video and if so please give me a thumbs up and share it with your friends and if you like learning more about traditional foods cooking be sure to subscribe to my channel and click on the notification bell that'll let you know each time I upload a new video well that's all for today but I want to thank you so much for joining me here and I enjoy seeing you again next time right here in my Texas Hill Country kitchen love and God bless and here's to the champagne of milk [Music]

Channel: Mary's Nest

Views: 72,192

Rating: 4.9410429 out of 5

Keywords: kefir, how to make kefir, kefir milk, milk kefir, kefir grains, kefir benefits, kefir recipes, how to make milk kefir, kefir culture, homemade kefir, cultured dairy, probiotic drink, probiotics, gut health, good bacteria, fermentation, fermented food, fermented foods, benefits of fermented foods, fermented drinks, cultured foods, traditional foods, Mary's Nest, marys nest, Mary's Nest Cooking School, marysnest.com, traditional cooking school, Cultures for Health, Tara Rosas

Id: meSkLYz9cBw

Length: 15min 37sec (937 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 05 2018