When I first heard how kefir is made, I incorrectly assumed I wouldn’t like it. I often order raw milk from a local farm, and noticed they offer raw milk kefir for sale, so I decided to buy some and try it. I didn’t like it. Honestly, the one I purchased tasted awful, like it had gone bad. Maybe it had! It is a good thing I didn’t let that first bad experience influence my decision to try and make some for myself. I purchased some kefir grains and fermented it, hoping that mine would taste different. Well, it did! It was ok all by itself, but in my morning smoothie, it is delicious! I love it, and now I drink it everyday. I will include a recipe for making the milk kefir AND the smoothie at the bottom of this post!
So, why do I love kefir so much, and why did I try SO hard to like it? (NOTE – I didn’t actually have to try hard to like my own homemade kefir! I was pleasantly surprised!)
Top 5 Reasons I Make Kefir A Part Of My Everyday Routine:
- Kefir is one of the MOST probiotic rich cultured beverages in the world, to my knowledge. With 50, 60 or possibly even more strains of beneficial microbes, kefir just can’t be beat!
- It Made Financial Sense. The spore based probiotics I purchase are currently over $40 a bottle, and with my family size, I need at least 4 of those, and actually more if I can get the teenagers to consistently take them. While these are top of the line supplements, in my opinion, getting probiotics in the form of food is better. Also, I can make kefir for less than a dollar a day, and that covers my whole family. I use kefir to make a smoothie for my six year old son for breakfast before school everyday, and later make smoothies for my husband, the baby and myself. It is easy to scale up or down the amount of kefir you want to make. Not only this, but the amount of probiotics in a cup of kefir compared to the amount in a tiny pill makes kefir a winner every time. I keep the probiotic pills on hand for occasions when we travel or get out of our usual daily kefir smoothie routine.
- Just to give you an idea of just how rich kefir is in probiotics, consider this study conducted by a Florida microbiology class in which they tested goat kefir for the amount of colony-forming units (CFUs) of beneficial bacteria. “They found 10 billion CFU per ml… which comes to about 150 billion CFU per tablespoon or 2.4 trillion per cup!“1 The spore based probiotic that I like has 4 billion CFU per 2 pills. All in all, fresh, homemade kefir is the best bang for the buck!
- Kefir changed my son’s ADHD-like behavior issues SIGNIFICANTLY! I could write an entire blog post just on this topic, and in the future, I will, because my young son’s story is incredible. He was having difficulty sitting still for school, focusing on tasks, having many daily meltdowns, wetting the bed nightly and controlling emotional swings. Any little thing could set him off. His teacher at school had a hard time with his behavior too. I started implementing a morning smoothie of kefir and homemade yogurt, and BAM, within a couple days, things began to change, and now he is barely ever wetting the bed, doing consistently better in school, and acting more like a typical six year old. I credit much of our progress to the probiotic rich kefir and yogurt smoothies! I have a blog post about how I make my yogurt here.
- My circulation, nerve pains and muscle tone has improved drastically. After I gave birth to my fourth child in 2020, I started having issues with clotting behind my knee, and a feeling of tingling and numbness in my hands and feet. The tingling wasn’t just in my nerves it was also in my veins. It felt like a kind of turbulence, or inflammation. My extremities often felt much cooler than the rest of my body too, which is a sign of impaired circulation. I have taken countless supplements to help me with those issues, and many of them helped a LOT, but nothing compares to the speed at which I am not healing since I have started drinking kefir yogurt smoothies daily. In a seven day span, I can say with confidence that I drink a kefir smoothie at least six of the seven days. Consistency is key! I also walk each day, but I was doing that before starting the kefir, and I noticed the biggest boost to my recovery after starting the kefir. I am looking forward to seeing how I continue to progress!
- Increased energy and cheerful drive for life – I am more inventive! Before starting the kefir, there were many days I would need a LONG mid-day nap. I would put the baby down for her nap and crash for a couple hours myself. Now, the days that I take a nap are few and far between. When I take a nap now, it is different. It isn’t so much of a dire need, as a comfort thing. Just a chance to close my eyes, and reflect a while. I could take it or leave it. Many days, I complete multiple projects, including posts on this blog, which wouldn’t have been possible before. I am also finding that my cheerful drive for life, my ambition has returned! I find myself coming up with ideas for things, whereas before, I was often just trying to get through. I didn’t realize just how fatigued I had become, until I got my energy back. I feel younger!
- BONUS REASON – My skin looks so much YOUNGER! I just turned 40, and noticed that my skin was starting to look like it. Since starting the kefir and homemade L. Reuteri yogurt (which is known to drastically increase oxytocin production, thereby increasing dermal collagen), in about a month’s time, I have seen drastic changes in the look of the skin on my whole body, but especially in my face and neck area. BIG bonus for sure! 🙂
How do you get started making kefir? Honestly, I find kefir to be one of the simplest ferments that I make. I have a daily morning routine, that only takes a few minutes, that keeps the process going, and has created a good daily habit for getting my probiotics in. You see, I have a goal that each day I consume at least three food based probiotics. Making kefir each morning makes that so easy to accomplish. Conveniently, kefir takes between 18-24 hours to ferment at room temperature, depending on the temperature of your home. So, I start the process each morning, and then by the next morning I have another batch of kefir ready to go for making smoothies! Simple!
What You’ll Need
- Approximately 1 Tablespoon Kefir “grains” – You can purchase them here or “borrow” some from a friend. Once you have them, you shouldn’t need to buy them again because it is a perpetual daily process, similar to having a pet!
- About 2-4 cups milk – You can use many kinds of milk for this, but you CAN NOT use ultra-pasteurized anything! Regular pasteurized whole milk is what I use, or raw milk. Many prefer using raw, whole cows milk. I normally use 4 cups of milk so I have plenty of probiotic rich kefir for making smoothies for the family in the morning.
- Quart sized (4 cups) mason jar with lid or other glass fermentation vessel.
- Strainer
- Measuring cup or bowl to strain kefir into
How To Make Milk Kefir – My Morning Routine
- On the first morning, take your new kefir grains, and add them to your clean, dry mason jar or fermentation vessel. You need about a tablespoon or more of grains. The more grains you add, the faster they will eat up the lactose in the milk.
- Add 2 to 4 cups of milk, depending on how much you can consume each day and how many people in the house are using it. To get the health benefits of the probiotics in kefir, I aim to drink at least 1 cup a day.
- Put on lid, and set out on your counter out of direct sunlight, but still in a place that is noticeable (as a reminder to keep an eye on it).
- Throughout the day and especially into the evening before you’re getting ready for bed, take a look at your kefir. If the milk still looks like regular milk (thin), then leave it out overnight. If you can see the milk seperating into curds and whey, put the jar into the fridge to slow it down until the morning.
- The next morning, strain out kefir through a mesh strainer to separate the grains from it. I find that taking a large spoon and moving the chunky grains around in the grainer helps to separate the kefir out more quickly. I usually have a few tablespoons of grains at the bottom afterwards that I then just spoon right back into my fermentation vessel to begin again! You can wash your vessel once or twice a week, or more if you wish. I have had zero mold issues doing it this way.
- Start back at step one to feed the grains and make a new batch for the following morning.
- See bonus recipe for how I make my morning smoothie.
- NOTES ABOUT GRAINS – Over time, you’ll notice that your grains increase in size and quantity. This is normal. Just add your “extra” grains into your smoothie, you won’t even notice them, and it will just increase the probiotic counts! Or, donate some to a friend! If you want to take a break from making kefir, feed your grains some fresh milk and put them into the fridge immediately. This will keep them happy for a while, but at least once a week I would swap out the milk and put fresh milk so they don’t starve. I have not yet experimented with longer time periods since I am almost always home, and make kefir every day. NEVER rinse your grains with water, they do not need to be cleaned.
BONUS Recipe – My Morning Kefir Smoothie
As part of my morning routine, I strain the kefir and then make a smoothie for breakfast for myself, my husband and kids. This is why I usually make 4 cups of kefir, so that there is enough to go around!
Smoothie Ingredients and tools: Makes 2 servings
- 2-3 cups kefir
- 1 cup yogurt, homemade is best. If you want to omit this, you can always just add extra kefir!
- Half a banana
- Spoonful of peanut butter, I like Smucker’s Organic Creamy peanut butter because there are no nasty hydrogenated oils in it.
- Beet Powder (optional, for a great nitric oxide boost)
- Stevia to taste
- Nutribullet or other similar blender
Just add all of this to your blender cup and blend gently, pulsing until just incorporated. The less blending you do the better, as I figure it preserves more of the living microbes in the finished product. Enjoy!
Sources:
- How Many Probiotics (or CFU( Does Kefir Really Have? Yemoos Nourishing Cultures website, 2019.