Making Kefir: Milk Kefir and Water Kefir

Did you know most of your immune system is in your gut? One of the most important health habits, practiced by traditional cultures all over the globe for centuries, is eating fermented or “cultured,” probiotic-rich, living foods.

My entire family stopped getting sick, and never again got a flu or bacterial infection, when we made it a daily habit to eat homemade cultured foods.

(Specifically, I made a habit of using milk kefir grains, with raw goat milk, when my kids were little. Later, and to this day, I quickly and easily “culture” coconut juice, using water kefir grains--and I use it as the base of smoothies instead of water.)

Many modern health problems are related to a lack of healthy organisms in the digestive tract. And these billions of teeming flora are our main protection against viruses and bacteria. People who have taken antibiotics have severely depleted healthy flora, which leads to getting sick over and over, inflammation in the gut causing many modern diseases, and an inability to digest foods and utilize nutrition.

Step 8 of my 12 Steps to Whole Foods is about how to culture foods.

The easiest, least-expensive way to get live, fermented (or “cultured”) foods into your diet is to make homemade kefir. It tastes much like yogurt, but has even higher numbers and a broader range of beneficial microorganisms than yogurt does. And it doesn’t require any cooking—so, it’s simpler to make.

You can drink kefir plain. I made a smoothie for my children with milk kefir every morning, blended with bananas and berries.
For me and John, and when my adult kids are in town, I use coconut-water kefir every morning as the base of my Hot Pink Breakfast Smoothie (see Ch. 11 of 12 Steps to Whole Foods). (You may see coconut juice called coconut water or coconut liquid--they’re all the same thing. Coconut milk or coconut cream are different things--don’t use those for this easy habit I’m about to tell you; they are great products for other uses, but are much higher in fat and calories.)

You can use fermented coconut water to ferment grains (like wheat, oats, or rye) for sourdough bread or any baking recipe, breaking down wheat or other grains and making them far easier to digest. Use it as part of the liquid called for in your recipe.

An extra step in any baking recipe that is beneficial for your health is to soak the water/kefir (about 5:1 ratio) in flour or other forms of whole grains, 8 to 24 hours in advance of making the recipe.

A note about milk kefir: sometimes, especially in hot weather, a clear yellow liquid separates from the milk solids in your kefir, which is called whey. Do not throw this mineral-rich, nutritious liquid away. You can drink it plain or in a smoothie. It can be used – 2 Tbsp. in a cup of water – to ferment a quart of raw cabbage to make sauerkraut that will last 2+ years, covered, with no boiling-water-bath or pressurized canning. It can also be diluted with 5 parts water as a tree or plant/shrub fertilizer!

Let me explain what “kefir grains” are. They are similar to the “mother” in kombucha (another fermented product). They are a colony of living, probiotic organisms, which not only nourish the human gut microbiome, they also act on liquids like dairy milk, coconut liquid, or almond milk, to “ferment” it, or “culture” it. Cultured milks last much longer in your fridge than unfermented milks do, because the culturing has a preservation effect. But for the purposes of this article, I’m interested in teaching you how to make kefir successfully, because it’s so great for your gut health. I want to teach you how I make “water kefir” of coconut liquid, because it has enough natural sugars in it, that you don’t have to add processed sugar, like many people do, in most of the instructions you read online to make kefir.

You can definitely make a nutritionally powerful, gut-health-protective kefir drink, without adding sugars to your diet!

First of all, to purchase water kefir grains, click here. For milk kefir grains, click here.