How NOT To Make Your Own Kefir!

Making your own Kefir!

Kefir is a fermented milk (kinda like yoghurt) that provides mega helpful probiotics (bacteria) to the gut.

Sounds so wholesome and healthy and the exact thing to be doing with lockdown time, right?

I had such high hopes for this to be a really useful post on how to create your own tangy, delicious, gut friendly, alternative milk, kefir drinks.

Oh naive little me.

For anyone who, like me, isn’t sure how making kefir works, it sounds pretty straight forward. The first step is getting your hands on some kefir grains which are little gelatinous things that contain a mix of yeast and bacteria and are actually in no way grains at all. They’re a living micro organism created by nature and they look a bit like really tiny cauliflowers.

After some reading some interesting reviews on Amazon, the next day I had said gelatinous little cauliflowers in my possession.

The next thing I was instructed to do was ‘combine with milk, cover and leave in a warm place until the milk is thick and it has a pleasant aroma’.

4 days I waited.

Have you ever left milk in a ‘warm place’ for 4 days?

It’s not pretty.

4 days and my milk was still thin white water and unless sour dairy is a pleasant aroma, that requirement was absent too.

Then on day 5, I had curds and whey.

According to my limited instructions this meant it was ‘really ready’. So I strained my lumpy milk and grains in to a bowl and was left with lumpy milk and grains in a bowl.

It didn’t go as I’d hoped.

For my second batch I decided to use coconut milk because in my over excited lockdown imagination I had envisaged a Pinterest worthy coconut kefir drink. With a colourful umbrella. Cos I’m fancy.

I soldiered on with my second attempt and am pleased to report that currently in my fridge is a jar of kefir grains, next to a delicious bottle of Cherry Kefir from the Biotiful Dairy which I bought from Sainsbury’s.

Somethings just aren’t meant to be.

I guess the reason I’m writing this is to say, it’s okay to not be doing this shit right now. If you haven’t made your own sourdough starter, or baked a cake every week, or painted your house, or built a garden shed or if you’ve tried, or started any of those things and it hasn’t worked out,

that’s fine.

Not everything we start has to go to plan, pandemic or no pandemic. Not every task has to be wholesome and soul enriching and working towards our future self. (Whoever she is?)

I have learned that my kitchen efforts are best left to making recipes involving too much cheese and baking goods involving too much chocolate and that’s okay with me.

There’s no right way or wrong way to try.

You either win or you learn.