Homemade milk kefir is made from kefir grains, which are a symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast. It traditionally used as a drink, but it’s also great for smoothies or as a buttermilk substitute. It can even thicken so that you use it like yogurt.
Homemade milk kefir is not the same as store bought kefir. Store bought kefir is usually just yogurt in a liquid form. Homemade kefir tends to have a stronger flavour and can even be sparkling when fresh.
Why make milk kefir
Milk kefir is the perfect dairy culture for home use.
- It is much easier to make then yogurt.
- It ferments at room temperature, and you don’t need to heat the milk before culturing.
- Milk kefir is a great replacement for buttermilk in baking.
- You can culture whipping cream for ice cream and cultured butter.
- You can use it to make soft cheese.
- Kefir can be used as a starter culture (either as whey or straight kefir) for most everything.
The most difficult part of making kefir is finding the kefir grains. Most health food stores carry a powdered “kefir” starter
which isn’t actually real kefir, it’s just some of the bacteria strains found in kefir, and may not be robust enough to culture over and over again. If you want to maintain your own colony of kefir grains then you need to either buy freeze dried grains
(affiliate link) or make friends with someone who has grains.
Here’s a picture of my kefir grains. When I was a Tracebridge, Katie’s grains were very different from mine… they were individual little grains that more like water kefir grains. So clearly there are a few strains out there!
Homemade Milk Kefir
Want to make milk kefir at home? Here’s everything you need to know about how to make your own probiotic and delicious kefir. It is so much easier than yogurt, and can be used for all sorts of delicious fermented foods.
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Total Time: 5 minutes
- Yield: 1 liter 1x
- Category: Beverage
- Method: Fermented
Ingredients
- 1–2 tbsp of kefir grains
- 1 liter of milk or cream
Instructions
- Put the milk and kefir grains into a glass container.
- Leave in a warm location for a minimum of 8 hours and up to 48 hours depending on how strong you want the kefir to be. The longer you leave it the more sparkling and sour it will become.
- Remove the grains and reserve for future use.
Notes
- My kefir culture usually floats after 8 hours of fermenting, so I simply scoop it out with a spoon. If you have the tiny kefir grains then you will need to pour your kefir through a strainer.
- If you have too many grains or you leave your kefir out on the counter too long you will end up curdling your milk. This is perfectly good to eat! Turn it into kefir cheese for a delicious and probiotic cheese spread.
- See the sections below for more information on how to care for milk kefir grains.
Keywords: probiotic, healthy, easy, diy, gluten free, keto
Like all living beings, kefir does require a bit of TLC. Here’s how to care for your new “pet”:
- Kefir is happiest in fresh milk at room temperature. Try to pace your culturing with your consumption so that you can keep your kefir out of the fridge most of the time. If you only use a little bit of kefir, then just culture 2 cups at a time with 1 tbsp of grains.
- Alternatively, you can store your kefir in the fridge with lots of milk for 1-3 weeks. I’ve even left it for up to 4 weeks while we were on vacation. It wasn’t happy. But a few batches of milk later and we were back in business.
- Happy kefir will keep multiplying, so you’ll quickly end up with more grains then you’ll need. Though the grains are edible, I would recommend passing them along to a friend instead.
- If your grains turn a funny colour, then it’s likely that they’ve picked up some invasive mold/bacteria. Unfortunately the best way to fix this is to throw them out and start anew. (I’ve had my grains go pink on me a few times. Luckily I’ve shared with a lot of friends so I can borrow back more kefir grains!)
- Kefir can cross contaminate with other cultures (yogurt, sourdough, etc) so it’s best to culture them in a separate rooms of your house. (I’ve had kefir grow in my yogurt before.) I do all my kefir culturing in the kitchen, sourdough in the living room, yogurt in the dining room and other ferments in the bedrooms.
Weird, Wonderful and Completely Untrue Kefir Tales
There are a lot of stories going around about how to care for your kefir are not true. I’ve had the same culture kicking along for the past 7 years or so… so I’m pretty sure I know my stuff:
- You don’t need to wash your grains. They just need fresh milk to keep them healthy and strong. Water is unnecessary and probably harmful considering the potential risks of chlorine for our little friends.
- You can use metal utensils… unless you have really old-school copper or iron utensils… then the latic acid of the milk might damage your utensils. Otherwise stainless steel wont harm kefir grains.
thanks for sharing this infomation
Glad you found it helpful.
We always a have a fresh jug of this in the fridge for morning cereal. We leave it out on the counter for the day or the night only to prevent it from getting too fermented; kids dig it as long as it’s not separated. We also noticed that sometimes it turns into a wonderful yoghurty version of itself, with these huge blocks of curd that are like sweet yoghurt. It’s not consistent though. Do you know how or why that happens?
★★★★★
There are lots of factors that can affect how fast kefir ferments. The grains to milk ratio, room temperature. Kefir has a bit of its own Goldilocks effect.
You can also get nice thick kefir from culturing it with the grains for a shorter time, then letting it finish fermenting without the grains.
There have been few times after 12-24 hours, the milk has not thickened and it is the same consistency of when I poured out in. Any ideas about that?
I have made kefir every day for the past 6 years… and I would have to say that kefir is moody. 🙂 I find it thickens best when in a container that it has already cultured in a few times. But it’s also a bit like Goldilocks… it likes it warm, but not too warm. Enough grains but not too many grains.
Hi where can you buy the grains from
If you can’t find anywhere local, try amazon: https://www.fermentingforfoodies.com/archives/category/products/cultures
Thanks for the tips. The ‘don’t use metal utensils’ myth stopped me from staring my batch. Do you know how hard it is to find a nylon sieve?
Have just discovered Ribot milk (Lait ribot) here in France which I’m pretty sure is a version of kefir, any ideas?
Actually, lait ribot is more like buttermilk, and it’s very easy to culture: https://www.fermentingforfoodies.com/archives/2793
I got some milk kefir grains from another person in my town last week. It is pretty warm, even in my air conditioning in Texas summer. If I leave out the kefir for a day, (12 hrs) it separates. If I leave it out until the grains are floating, it isn’t thick at all. Any suggestions? I’d like it a little thicker. I’m using about a tbsp. Of grains, 2 c whole organic milk.
Try taking the grains out after 12 hours and letting it thicken out on the counter for another few hours. Or remove the grains and leave it to thicken in the fridge for 2 days. It really isn’t an exact process. My kids prefer it when kefir isn’t too thick, so they just use that, and I get to have the thicker kefir.
Hello!!
Looking for advice on maintaining a milk kefir sourdough starter – do I “feed” it with water or milk kefir after the initial bubbles start to form?
Thanks!
I just use milk kefir to start the sourdough, afterwards I feed it water and flour, just like a normal sourdough. If you have trouble maintaining a starter, then maybe just make new kefir sourdough each time? If you’re anything like me, then you probably always have a surplus of milk kefir!
Hi I have been trying to make milk kefir for about 2 weeks now with not much luck. It is nothing like the store kefir…its not sour at all and just has a strange taste and smell. I cant even describ it. I have tried different amounts of milk with different times and it’s all about the same. I love the sourness and flavor of the plain store bought kefir, but I’m getting nervous that homemade kefir is just not for me. What am I doing wrong?
Hi Jenn,
Where did you get your kefir grains from? Are they freeze dried or from a friend? It can take a while to reconstitute kefir grains. My kids like really mild kefir, so I only leave it out to culture for about 5 hours with 1 tbsp of grains for 3 cups of milk. Maybe try making really mild kefir to see if you like that better. It should taste like yogurt or store-bought kefir, but it won’t be thick. As it thickens the flavour will become more sour and slightly sparkly, which comes from the yeast in the kefir grains. Store-bought kefir is generally just bacterial strains, so it will have a slightly different flavour.
If you still don’t like mild kefir, then try using store-bought kefir to culture a buttermilk-like beverage. Check my recipe for buttermilk for instructions. Enjoy!
In an effort to help my sourdough starter, I placed my milk kefir next to it on the counter. I did not know that this was not a good idea. My sourdough definitely got a boost and was happy. However, in the last couple days, my kefir grains have a pinkish tinge. The kefir looks and smells normal, it’s just the grains with this pink color and it’s only on the interior parts of the grains. Are the grains bad? Thanks in advance for your input.
I’ve had my milk kefir grains go pink on me a few times. Though never from sourdough starter. Usually, it’s because I went away on holiday and didn’t feed them. It’s not always permanent. Try “cleaning” your grains by putting them in a small amount of fresh milk, culturing for a few hours, then putting them in a new batch of fresh milk. Do this 2-3x and hopefully, the grains will come out alright. Otherwise, maybe you can get some new grains? I’m always sharing my grains around, so the last time I had an issue I just got a new set of grains from a friend. Good luck!
Thank you!
When you say 1 tbls of kefir grains what would the weight be in grams to how many millilitres of milk. I am in England and don’t do cups. Thank you Lesley.
I’m in Canada, so I do both! However, most of my readers are in the USA which is why I write in imperial. 🙂 It’s about 15 mL of kefir grains for 1 Litre of milk. The exact measurement is not required. Just use a large spoonful.