No-Fuss Homemade Milk Kefir Recipe For Gut Health

This post will share how to make homemade milk kefir.

As a single childless woman in her thirties, my favourite thing to do now is indulge in hobbies.

This Summer, while I couldn’t sign up for swimming classes early enough and skipped out on holidays like I typically do, I decided to spend time watching the Paris 2024 Olympics and building my fermentation skills.

Like everyone else grappling with the cost-of-living crisis, my household decided to evaluate our grocery shopping and saving strategies.

One of which included bulk buying and monthly food deliveries.

This decision meant I could evaluate my grocery list and find ways to save money.

One of the most purchased on my list was the Biotful Kefir Original.

I typically buy about five bottles, which runs out after two weeks.

While some people detest the taste of fermented milk, I’ve come to enjoy it in the last couple of years, and it has easily replaced my need for frizzy drinks.

After analysing how much I spent on store-bought kefir every month, I decided to find out if I could make it home.

Fortunately, I could and was thrilled about it, which kickstarted my Summer of Fermentation.

What’s the deal with Fermentation?

There’s nothing more humbling than getting older and being forced to care about your health before it catches up with you in your later years.

Towards the end of my twenties, I started paying more attention to my health, diet, and nutrition.

This meant finding the most convenient way to get my nutrients in.

My first experience with fermentation started with store-bought Kimchi, which was an excellent way to add veggies to my meals, particularly with noodles.

After Kimchi, it was Kefir and Sourdough bread.

Fermented foods have many benefits, but perhaps the most common is the excellent probiotics they contain, which boost gut health.

While fermentation is a great method of food preparation, all the good bacteria and living microbes you get from ingesting fermented goods travel to your digestive system to support the existing microbes in your gut.

It goes without saying that good gut health contributes to a healthy immune system and improves metabolism.

I noticed less bloating and easier bowel movements since switching to fermented foods.

What is Kefir?

Kefir is a drinking yoghurt from fermented milk rich in calcium and probiotic bacteria.

It can also be made from water, but you need a different starter culture.

It’s similar to regular yoghurt but has a thinner consistency, which makes it much more suitable for drinking or using with other suitable recipes.

I’ve been making my homemade milk kefir since May, and the experience has been incredible, so I thought I should share.

As a result of having an abundance of kefir, I can now have healthy breakfasts consistently.

Plus, it’s cheap, easy to make, and saves me from buying the pricey store-bought options.

So, let’s get into the recipe!

Here’s How To Make Homemade Milk Kefir For Beginners

What you need:

• 2 x 1-litre jars ( I like to use 1l Wide Mouth Preserve Kilner jars as they have a two-system screw lid which is excellent for fermentation). You’ll need one jar for fermentation and the other for storage. (I use the 1l Juice and Sauce Bottle for storage)
• A plastic sieve
• A silicone spatula
• Paper towel or Muslin cloth
• Kitchen scale or Measuring cup

Ingredients

• 5g Organic Milk grains ( I got mine from Freshly Fermented)
• 2l of Whole Milk (The higher the fat content, the richer the kefir, so plant milk won’t do. I use ASDA Long Life Whole Milk, an excellent pantry staple.)

Process

1. Follow the instructions from the packaging of the milk grains, which mostly involves activating them.
2. Immediately after it is delivered, pour the 5g of milk grains into one of the glass jars and fill it with 250 ml of milk.
3. The screw tops in the Kilner jars come in two parts; a tin disc and a screw band.
4. Keep the tin disc aside and cover the jar with a piece of paper towel or a muslin cloth and secure it with the screw band. This method will help with ventilation.
5. Leave the jar at room temperature for about 24 – 48 hours. During the Summer, you can leave it on the counter, and it will ferment faster. For the rest of the year, particularly if you live in the North of England like me, you can either leave it in the microwave or oven with the light on.
6. After 24 – 48 hours, you should begin to see some activity. The milk should have thickened slightly like a single cream. That is your Kefir.
7. But you can’t drink that first batch as it will be weak and sour.
8. So, sieve the milk grains, discard the kefir, and repeat Steps 2-5.
9. After the second or third batch, your kefir should be ready to drink.
10. Sieve out the milk grains and store the 250ml kefir in the second 1-litre jar. I like to put mine straight in the fridge, which lasts about 10 days.
11. With the leftover milk grains, start a new batch of kefir. This time you don’t need to discard anything, you can just drink the fermented kefir after 24 – 48 hours. The more times you use the milk grains, the thicker and richer your kefir will be.

Key things to know about Homemade Milk Kefir

• If you’re unfamiliar with the taste of kefir, I suggest you get a bottle from the store to see if you like it. Many people don’t, and there’s no point in going through this process if you don’t genuinely enjoy drinking it. Also, being familiar with the store-bought one will give you an idea of how many times you need to use the milk grains to get the optimal desired kefir taste you like.
• The milk grains multiply a lot. I also started with 5g; I probably have over 100g now. So, every time you sieve the milk grains for a new batch, measure them to see if you need to increase the milk. The ideal ratio is 250 ml milk for every 5g of milk grains. So, if you’re looking towards making a litre or more kefir, you need your rains to grow up to 20g, then you can ferment with 1 litre of milk.
• Once the milk grains grow, you’ll always have excess, so you can either discard them, give them out or freeze them in a batch of fresh milk.
• For short-term storage, I like to make two litres of kefir that last for about two weeks, and then I store it in a small jar of fresh milk in the fridge.
• When I’m ready to use it again, I reactivate the grains by taking 20g of them and placing them in 250 ml of milk. Reactivating your grains with 250 ml of milk is very important every time.
• I like to discard twice, meaning I reactivate the first time and another time before fermenting with 1l of milk. This way, I can get rid of the sour batches.

Favourite Kefir Recipes

While I prefer to drink kefir as yoghurt, I’ve incorporated it more into any recipe requiring milk or yoghurt. For example:

• Smoothies
• Chia Seed Pudding
• Salad Dressing

There are tons of ways you can use Kefir aside from drinking it.

My favourite resource for kefir recipes and fermentation, in general, is The Cultured Club by Dearbhla Reynolds.

It’s more of a UK/NI-based book, but it is the most comprehensible book on fermentation that I have come across.

In Conclusion,

If you’re new to fermentation. homemade milk kefir is one of the easiest things to start with as long as you can stand the taste.