A Probiotic Pictorial

Kefir is our latest love.
And recently we discovered how to make it at home with our very own Kefir grains which has started us down the path of probiotic bliss.
Now if I tell you that Kefir is a refreshing, cultured milk beverage you might think I've flipped my lid. But it's true, Kefir is a very satisfying, slightly fizzy, vaguely yogurt-like drink. We find it delicious, and apparently tons of people agree because the internet is loaded with information about it. It's one of those things that once we learned about it feel like "how in the heck could I not have heard of this before?"
Kefir has a long and fascinating history. Apparently Kefir originated in Russia in the Caucasus Mountains where people from that area were reported to have very long life spans. There's even a fantastic legend that says that Kefir grains came from Mohammed as a gift to the Orthodox people in the Caucasian mountains, and that the grains themselves were called "Grains of the Prophet". There's another story that these people guarded their Kefir grains and although they shared the beverage it made they wouldn't give away the grains themselves. People attempted to reproduce Kefir without the grains but to no avail. In the early 1900's an attempt was made by the owners of some cheese factories in the northern caucasus mountains to obtain some of the Kefir grains. It sounds like something from a fairy tale but they sent a female employee to *charm* some grains out of Caucasus Prince. Apparently he was able to resist these charms and wouldn't share the grains so off she went but was kidnapped by the Prince's men and returned to him because he wanted to marry her!!! She was rescued and brought the matter to the Czar's court where she ended up winning her suit against the Prince's kidnapping and her settlement was....you guessed it...KEFIR grains. She is credited with bringing Kefir to the Russian People where it was first used for medicinal purposes.
Despite all the wonderful probiotic health reasons of Kefir we drink it first and foremost cause it's dang tasty!
We ordered our grains off the internet because like I already mentioned you can not make real Kefir without real grains.
Kefir grains added to the appropriate amount of milk (organic of course) produce ready to drink Kefir in about 24 hours. So this is sort of like having a pet that needs taken care of. Every day we feed our grains new milk and enjoy the delicious Kefir the grains produce.
Alan likes to say our Kefir is full of organic nano-bots *grins* because they're microscopic buddies that do good stuff inside your body. (sounds a lot like nano-bots right!) It makes a kind of sense if you think about it.
If you have no interest in our daily process of making Kefir then quit reading now. Though I can't understand how you'd NOT be interested. If YOU wrote a blog about how you get up and prepare oatmeal, or put your socks on, or make coffee or dance to Esthero's "wikked Lil' Grrrls" every day I'd read it.....really I would.
It all starts with these...our wonderful little Kefir grains. As you can see they look more like pieces of Cauliflower then grains of any sort.
They are added to organic milk every day and then hide out under a towel on our kitchen table busily converting plain milk to Kefir. It's not under a towel cause it's camera shy but to keep it out of direct sunlight.
You can really see that the Kefir grains are having an affect on the milk. It thickens up, sometimes even separating into curds and whey.
When we see it has started to do this we stir it up and get ready to exchange the new batch of Kefir for more milk.
After we have stirred the Kefir we start scooping out the Kefir grains, they tend to float at the top. We scoop them out just to help strain the whole batch easier.We strain the Kefir through a big colander into a big bowl. (We learned the hard....VERY messy way that it was easier to dirty an extra bowl just for the sole purpose of straining rather then straining right into the smaller bowl we end up storing the Kefir in.)
The Kefir grains left in the colander plus the little curds they have made in the Kefir plus the slightly thick nature of the the Kefir itself makes it a little difficult to strain and vigorous shaking of the colander is needed to strain off the Kefir completely.

After draining the Kefir off of the grains as best we can we often weigh them to see how much they have grown. The Kefir grains will grow a little bit with every batch and eventually some have to be separated out of the mix or else you need to increase the amount of milk you are using. Our grains have way more then tripled since we first got them. We now have extra grains just sitting in the fridge waiting for some kind soul to make Kefir in their household with them. We never really realized how very few people we know until we started thinking of who we could give our extra Kefir grains to. Perhaps as a VERY surprising gift to the mail man?
After the grains are weighed we add them back to the pitcher we use to make the Kefir.
We pour the appropriate amount of milk into the pitcher over top of the Kefir grains. After adding the milk we cover the pitcher with a lid and cloth and let the Kefir making process begin all over again. We store our finished Kefir in Clara Belle the fridge and prefer to drink it chilled with a bit of stevia for sweetener and vanilla for flavor, occasionally adding fruit to the mix.It is absolutely delicious to us and rather addicting. The slightly fizzy nature of it when I have my Kefir sweetened and vanilla-ized reminds me a bit of a vanilla ice cream float in a lemon/lime soda. The flavor as I mentioned earlier is yogurt like, I'd also compare it a bit to buttermilk flavor. We have quickly filled our Clara Belle fridge with huge amounts of prepared Kefir and have used it in soups, sauces, salad dressings and baked goods. (of course you lose some of the health benefits when you heat it but the flavor adds some nice zing to all the afore mentioned food stuffs)( We have even made batches of cream cheese type cheese called Lebna that I am sure I'll have to blog about eventually........
There is a whole wealth of information on the internet about the vitamins and beneficial bacterias (of which there's a ton, way more then yogurt has) in the Kefir. For now I'm just thrilled with the flavor but there's some interesting reading out there on the health benefits of Kefir.
O.k. I gotta quit blabbing and post this before it turns into the world's longest blab-fest about Kefir. Besides I'm pretty sure it's that time again........time to take over the world you might ask? Not yet.... it's time to add another batch of Kefir to the fridge and start another batch brewing.