How to Make Kefir at Home — Step-by-Step Guide & Transcript

[00:01] but if there was one true superfood, it would be kefir. In today's show, what filter out your kefir and restart it to make fresh kefir that takes about 12 to 18 hours of fermentation. So, this is

[00:15] about a year. A friend of mine, Cam Straw, actually got me introduced to this about 2 years ago. So, this is my kefir that has been fermenting for a little bit longer. It's about 24 hours. It's about half a gallon here. It's

[00:29] this. Um, it's just part of the fermentation process. And then what we're going to do, so the tools are very simple. You need kefir starter grains and preferably raw milk and two half gallon glass jars, a little funnel right

[00:45] here. And then you need a strainer. The mesh can't be too condensed. It needs to have some pore some pores that that can help you uh filter out the kefir. I do have another um kitchen strainer. The mesh here is just too fine. Uh I find

[01:00] that it just collects too much of the kefir. So go for one. As you can see, I don't know the differences, but as you can see, this one's a lot more open. So go for something like this. It's not rocket science. You again, I just left

[01:13] this on my countertop at room temperature for 24 hours. And I'll share momentarily. So you pour it over. It honestly has the

[01:25] So you pour it over. It honestly has the consistency of a watery yogurt. Okay, so going to be noisy if I do it how I normally do it, which I guess I might as well just do. So, I learned this from Cam's wife, Courtney. You just kind of

[01:38] bounce it like this. It's all going through. Now, what's left on top is the actual kefir grains, which have a load of health benefits. All right, so we're about halfway done.

[01:53] Again, this take minutes. So, again, this takes minutes. We're about halfway done here. I'm going to pour the rest of the kefir there. And then we'll refresh it momentarily. So, when you get a lot of the kefir in

[02:06] the bowl, it gets a little wonky. So, what I'm going to do, it's probably going to get a little messy here, but just pour that. This is where the funnel comes in so you don't have crackling all over your countertop.

[02:21] And so this fermented almost like yogurt milk if you will. almost like yogurt milk if you will. So this is where what I do. Just kind of a few scrapes. So if you just progressively scrape it

[02:37] like so, you'll get out all your kefir and what will be left will be your kefir grains. People pronounce it kefir. I just say kefir. Say it with confidence.

[02:53] Okay. So those are the key for grains. They just continue to multiply. So that's what's left here. And now we'll talk about the health benefits. So see those these are the kefir grains. These are

[03:07] really impressive and in how they're able to transform your raw milk into kefir. But these are your kefir grains. Now let's talk about the health benefits film this, we're approaching winter. We know that's the time of cold and flu. We

[03:23] have influenza, COVID, respiratory sensitial virus. All these pathogens are circulating. When you regularly drink kefir, you just don't get sick. I mean, I I can't say this with any randomized placebo controlled uh studies and so

[03:38] forth, but anecdotally, everyone that I talk to that makes their own kefir, they season, the cold and flu season. So, um, it is a hack and honestly a superfood. There's many antimicrobial and antiviral compounds that are made through the

[03:52] fermentation of the milk. It tastes amazing and it's just really healthpromoting. There's tons of research to support that effect. Uh, channel at length, so I'm not going to get into every single study, but I will

[04:06] link those in the description below. And we'll talk about how to refresh your we'll talk about how to refresh your kefir. So, we're going to pour this like so. And another thing I do, I let my dogs

[04:19] lick this and they love licking this and they're getting some some natural antimicrobial um anti-cancer, gut bacteria properties. grains. And you might be saying, well, don't you rinse this off? I don't. I

[04:34] just keep it going. Um, and the way to sort of get more confident in making kefir or keier is through the fermentation process of making sourdough. So, you realize that when you

[04:47] make sourdough, you just scrape off your mother culture and refresh that with new sourdough, we're going to refresh this with raw, unpasteurized goat milk. One second. So, what we have here is our raw, unpasteurized goat milk. I use

[05:02] either cow milk or goats milk. The goat milk I just happen to have and it's available. So, what I like to do when I'm refreshing this is I'll scrape all of the material off the sides. Okay. And this is where it gets a little bit

[05:17] messy, but I want to just get all of this material. And just like when you're making your sourdough mother culture, you get all the junk off the sides. And as you add new quote unquote

[05:32] starter, new flour, in this context, we're using milk. Now, I'm doing a small we're using milk. Now, I'm doing a small batch right now because this batch was refrigerated for a little bit when I was out of town. And so, what I'm going

[05:46] to do is just swoosh it all around. Get all the stuff off the sides. Okay. So, what you want to do now is take a paper towel.

[06:04] cover this for 24 hours, and you will have amazing fresh kefir just as we made here. Now, of course, you can buy this at the grocery store. You're going to pay $9 to $11. It's in a plastic container. Maybe it has

[06:20] sweetener. I don't like to do that. I like to make my own because make a lot more kefir than I will get at the store and it's fresh. It's amazing. keep amplifying the more that you feed it. So, I would strongly encourage you

[06:35] culturesforhealth.com and get some of their kefir starter grains. You can with sourdough, right? You don't make a,000 grams of mother culture. you might make 50 grams and just keep adding your starter culture uh to that and just

[06:50] amplifying this. And so the same concepts that you've learned by making sourdough you can apply to making kefir. So I would highly encourage you do this especially during this cold and flu season. This stuff is amazing. It tastes

[07:03] health, especially your children's and your pets. So get after it. I'll put want to learn more about the science of kefir. I'll post that video right there. I appreciate you tuning all the way through this video.