Yogurt and kefir

[Yvonne Smith]

I was not sure whether to put this in the health section, or in food. Even though both have terrific health benefits, we also eat them because we enjoy them as a food; but I decided to put the thread here.
Anyway, both have good probiotics, especially when made at home, and if you have raw milk, then it could be even better; but unless you have your own cow or milk goat, it is hard to get raw milk anymore.

Making kefir is really easy, and you do not need any special apparatus to make it. I have tried the kefir grains, but found that since I am an erratic kefir drinker, I do much better using the kefir starter packets, which you just add to a quart of milk, leave it out overnight, and the next day, you have kefir. You can also use a bottle of store-bought kefir and put about a quarter of a cup in with the quart of milk instead of the starter packets.

 

[Jacob Petersheim]

While not anti-dairy, I have never liked to drink milk and gave it up soon after we stopped getting those little milk cartons of it in early school years.

Cheese, butter, yogurt, etc. are fine and I have tried kefir but found it too expensive for my tastes. So maybe making it at home would prove a better answer for me.

I probably wouldn't add berries, despite how good that sounds. I heard that dairy acts in a manner preventing absorption of anthocyanins when consumed together. But perhaps cocoa or something else might be added as desired.

 

[Yvonne Smith]

Kefir is expensive in the store, and nowhere near as healthy as if you make it at home. Basically, it does not cost much more than the price of milk if you make your own kefir, because you can use a starter from the first batch and make several more quarts before you need a new starter batch.
After reading the “Supergut” book by Dr. William Davis, I tried making the L.Reuteri yogurt, which is supposed to be much better than regular yogurt, but you have to have a yogurt maker that you can set the temperature to 100F for 36 hours to culture it.

I just got new kefir starter from Amazon, and i discovered that they have some that has the l. Reuteri culture in it, so I am going to try that next. I use either yogurt or cottage cheese to make our keto ice cream, and the kefir will work the same way. Even if it does not have as much as the special yogurt has, it should still be very healthy.
The yogurt and kefir that you buy in the store is pasteurized , so it kills the live cultures when they do that, and they just add more in from a powder, so it is not anywhere near as potent as making your own yogurt or kefir.

 

[Yvonne Smith]

While not anti-dairy, I have never liked to drink milk and gave it up soon after we stopped getting those little milk cartons of it in early school years.

Cheese, butter, yogurt, etc. are fine and I have tried kefir but found it too expensive for my tastes. So maybe making it at home would prove a better answer for me.

I probably wouldn't add berries, despite how good that sounds. I heard that dairy acts in a manner preventing absorption of anthocyanins when consumed together. But perhaps cocoa or something else might be added as desired.

So, I asked Co-Pilot about dairy and anthocyanins, and the answer was that it was sometimes better absorbed with a-casein proteins. When I asked about kefir or yogurt, apparently, it really enhances anthocyanin absorption by the body, so feel free to add those berries to your yogurt and kefir, @Jacob Petersheim !

 

[Jacob Petersheim]

feel free to add those berries to your yogurt and kefir

Thanks.

So many opinions that I suppose it means there are no 100% answers.

 

[Yvonne Smith]

My L.Reuteri kefir packets should be here tonight ! They are coming UPS, which always arrives late afternoon or evening, unlike the mail, which gets here earlier in the day.
In the meantime, I got a quart of the Lifeway kefir and used that as a starter, added one of the Bio-Gaius probiotic tablets, which have the L. Reuteri strain in the tablet, and made my kefir that way.

I have been reading more about the difference between using the packets and the live grains, and there really is a huge difference in the variety and quantity of bacteria and beneficial yeast that comes with the grains, as opposed to just using the packets.
So, I cashed in a survey gift card, and ordered some grains on Amazon from Poseymom.
I have ordered from her before and it went well, and there is no extra shipping. It will be a week or so before they arrive, but I will be able to make kefir with the packets until then.

I have been chatting with Co-Pilot about the differences and benefits of using grains, and I really like using the AI for this. It is part of my Bing search engine, and simple to use. Co-Pilot remembers things I have asked before, so many of my answers are more tailored to me specifically, than just a page of information.

Here is the difference between using the starter packets, and using live cultures from the kefir grains. Different packets and different grains would probably have some differences, but in general, it is easy to see there are a LOT more probiotics by using the live grains. ( Grains are not actually a grain, they look like little pieces of rice or cottage cheese, and are actually a SCOBY, similar to making kombucha.)

 

[Yvonne Smith]

I have been making the kefir with the new L.Reuteri starter, and seems to be making delicious kefir. I am using it to make salad dressing (ranch dressing), as well as drinking some in the morning , blended with a fresh peach, and then making ice cream in the ninja Creami.
I picked a small bowl of blueberries and am going to make blueberry ice cream today. Our blueberries are about done for this year, but I might have enough for another batch of ice cream before they are completely gone.

Here is a list of things that kefir is supposed to be beneficial for. This is from the internet, and the person’s typewriter (or their spelling) is not that great.

 

[Yvonne Smith]

So, today I was chatting with co-pilot about the nutrition benefits comparison between cilantro and parsley, and using it in my veggie pasta salad. Co-pilot then mentioned a kefir salad dressing, so I asked for the recipe, and wanted to share it here.
(I really love chatting with co-pilot. “He” remember questions I have asked about before, and brings them up in another conversation, like bringing up a kefir dressing when I was asking about adding parsley or cilantro.)

A bit off the topic, but he says the parsley has a whole LOT more vitamins and minerals than the cilantro does, and copilot also says I can add in a bit of my Shiso perilla leaf for extra flavor.

 

[Yvonne Smith]

I am thinking about getting another yogurt maker for the L.Reuteri probiotic yogurt that Dr. Davis recommends in his Super Gut book. The one that I have works fine, but it only makes the yogurt in little 6 oz cups, and I would rather make the yogurt a quart at a time, plus that is easier to store than all of the little cups in the fridge.
The L.Reuteri yogurt is not considered a true yogurt because it has different probiotic species than regular yogurt has, so it is actually a cultured dairy product; but it has a lot more of the important healthy bacteria species than regular yogurt or even kefir from kefir grains.

The L.reuteri yogurt is cultured at 100F for 36 hours , which is much longer than regular yogurt or kefir cultures, and the probiotics double each hour it is cultured, so most of the best culture is happening in the last hour. Dr. Davis says that after 36 hours, the bacteria start dying , so 36 hours achieves the maximum amount of culture.

 

[Jacob Petersheim]

Do these machines have a timer so you don't go over the fermentation time?

I'm not sure what I'd store it in. Maybe the large tubs that you can buy cottage cheese in for around $7? Those are squatter than a large yogurt container. But I suppose you can buy "disposable" reusable thin plastic tubs with lids now. I'm just cheap.

 

[Yvonne Smith]

You have to have a yogurt maker that controls time and temperature for the L.Reuteri . It dies if it is over around 100F, and most regular yogurt makers culture at around 110F and they only run for around 12-15 hours of culture.
Some people use an instant pot, but again, it has to have the time and temperature control to set it for the low temp needed for Reuteri bacteria.

I just store my kefir and yogurt in a regular wide mouth quart jar, @Jacob Petersheim . The new one that i am looking at now has 2 quart sized glass containers, so that would work fine, too.

I should have my amazon gift card from the dog food survey any time now, so I have $400 that i can use for health items, and the new yogurt maker is one of the things i am considering, and will send my old one out to Idaho for my son to use with the little containers.
This is the new one I want, and I like the containers that come with it, although it has the option of having the small containers also.

 

[Jacob Petersheim]

Glass storage has obvious advantages over plastic. Makes sense.

 

[Axel Slingerland]

When I first saw this thread, and this goes back to my days with the band, but when I saw Kefir, I thought you meant Kiefer and misspelled it. But then I read a little and realized that you weren't talking about that at all, and even though it's been since September 6th, 1999 that I quit smoking whacky tobacky, I still speak Pothead.

Keifer, sometimes also called pollen or dry sift, is the powdery, crystallized substance extracted from the resin glands (trichomes) on the flower buds of the cannabis plant. It's known for its high concentration of cannabinoids like THC and terpenes, making it more potent than standard cannabis flower.

Google AI finally knew what it was talking about.

 

[Marie Mallory]

I was not sure whether to put this in the health section, or here in food. Even though both have terrific health benefits, we also eat them because we enjoy them as a food; so I decided to put the thread here.
Anyway, both have good probiotics, especially when made at home, and if you have raw milk, then it could be even better; but unless you have your own cow or milk goat, it is hard to get raw milk anymore.

Making kefir is really easy, and you do not need any special apparatus to make it. I have tried the kefir grains, but found that since I am an erratic kefir drinker, I do much better using the kefir starter packets, which you just add to a quart of milk, leave it out overnight, and the next day, you have kefir. You can also use a bottle of store-bought kefir and put about a quarter of a cup in with the quart of milk instead of the starter packets.

I'm having to do the store yogurt now but hope to get to making the kefir soon.

Yvonne, wish we lived closer, I'd give you some of these jars of pears we're canning this week. And others here too.

 

[Yvonne Smith]

Making kefir is extremely simple, @Marie Mallory . Order a package of kefir starter from amazon. It comes with 10 starter packets. You can make 3-4 quarts of kefir with each starter packet.
All you need are two of your quart jars.
Add 1 starter packet and a little whole milk to the jar and shake to mix it up, then fill the jar with milk, put a lid on it and let it sit out in a warm place overnight.
It will take between 12-24 hours for it to culture (depending on the room temperature) into a drinkable mixture about the consistency of pancake batter or buttermilk.
Once it does that , pour all but about a half cup into the second jar and refrigerate that for drinking. Add more milk to the first jar which has the 1/2 cup of starter kefir in it to fill the jar and set it back out to culture.

If you have stomach issues, it is often from bad gut bacteria, and the live kefir cultures will start killing off the bad bacteria. The yogurt that you buy in the store has almost no live cultures in it.
They only culture it a few hours, and then they pasteurize it, which kills off the live cultures. So then , they just ad a probiotic capsule to the yogurt, which gives it a few live cultures, but no where near enough to make any kind of a difference in your gut biome.

The homemade kefir has lots of live cultures, and they are live when you drink it. The longer it cultures, the more probiotic bacteria it has, but the more of the milk sugar they will consume, and the more sour the kefir will be, so you have to see where you like the taste.
A good way to consume it is to get a container of whey protein powder, and add a scoop of that to about 12-16 oz of kefir in a blender, add some ice and blend it into a shake.
The protein powder will make the shake even healthier, and add a nice vanilla flavor to the kefir shake. You can also add fruit or berries for even more flavor !

The directions might say to heat the milk and cool it before adding the kefir starter, but I never do that, I use milk straight out of the refrigerator. Kefir cultures at room temperature, so you do not want the milk to be too hot and kill the culture.
Here is the culture starter i use, that also has the L.Reuteri probiotic bacteria in it, but Amazon also has regular kefir starter packets.

 

[Marie Mallory]

Making kefir is extremely simple, @Marie Mallory . Order a package of kefir starter from amazon. It comes with 10 starter packets. You can make 3-4 quarts of kefir with each starter packet.
All you need are two of your quart jars.
Add 1 starter packet and a little whole milk to the jar and shake to mix it up, then fill the jar with milk, put a lid on it and let it sit out in a warm place overnight.
It will take between 12-24 hours for it to culture (depending on the room temperature) into a drinkable mixture about the consistency of pancake batter or buttermilk.
Once it does that , pour all but about a half cup into the second jar and refrigerate that for drinking. Add more milk to the first jar which has the 1/2 cup of starter kefir in it to fill the jar and set it back out to culture.

If you have stomach issues, it is often from bad gut bacteria, and the live kefir cultures will start killing off the bad bacteria. The yogurt that you buy in the store has almost no live cultures in it.
They only culture it a few hours, and then they pasteurize it, which kills off the live cultures. So then , they just ad a probiotic capsule to the yogurt, which gives it a few live cultures, but no where near enough to make any kind of a difference in your gut biome.

The homemade kefir has lots of live cultures, and they are live when you drink it. The longer it cultures, the more probiotic bacteria it has, but the more of the milk sugar they will consume, and the more sour the kefir will be, so you have to see where you like the taste.
A good way to consume it is to get a container of whey protein powder, and add a scoop of that to about 12-16 oz of kefir in a blender, add some ice and blend it into a shake.
The protein powder will make the shake even healthier, and add a nice vanilla flavor to the kefir shake.

The directions might say to heat the milk and cool it before adding the kefir starter, but I never do that, I use milk straight out of the refrigerator. Kefir cultures at room temperature, so you do not want the milk to be too hot and kill the culture.
Here is the culture starter i use, that also has the L.Reuteri probiotic bacteria in it, but Amazon also has regular kefir starter packets.


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Thanks Yvonne, I'll try it soon. I forgot how easy you told us it was.

 

[Yvonne Smith]

One of my Amazon gift cards arrived yesterday, so this morning, I ordered my new L.Reuteri yogurt maker ! This one makes 2 quart sized containers at one time, so I do not have to mess with all the little jars.
I am sending the one I have now back to Idaho with my son who is moving back home, and he will give it to my other son who lives out there and wants to make the Reuteri yogurt.
I also ordered one of the starter culture packets, which is easier than crunching up the probiotic Bio Gastrus tablets. It is all supposed to be here by tomorrow, so I can try everything out and see how well it all works. Once you use the starter culture, then you can just save some yogurt from the batch and use that to start the next batch, so you do not have to use a culture packet for each batch.

 

[Jacob Petersheim]

about the consistency of pancake batter or buttermilk

Ahh.

So I guess that's why you don't just add the culture to a jug of milk and leave it out, hmm?

 

[Yvonne Smith]

Ahh.

So I guess that's why you don't just add the culture to a jug of milk and leave it out, hmm?

With kefir, that is all you need to do, @Jacob Petersheim . Get some of the kefir starter packets from Amazon and a quart of either milk or half and half, add the kefir starter and set it out on your counter in a fairly warm place. Depending on how warm the room temperature is, you should have a drinkable kefir in 12-24 hours of sitting out .

When making yogurt, you need a warmer place to culture it. Most yogurt cultures at around 110f, for 10-15 hours and you will have a nice thick yogurt. I have a Cuisinart yogurt machine for making regular yogurt, but it cultures too hot for the l.Reuteri yogurt, so for that you need a device that has temperature control and can go for 36 hours. It makes a quart at a time, which I like better than the small jars. My daughter gave it to me several years ago because she preferred one that uses the jars.

You can see from this chart that the probiotic develops the most in the last few hours because it keeps doubling every hour, so the last hours have the most probiotic bacteria to double.
This is why store bought yogurt and kefir, which are barely cultured a few hours, have almost no beneficial probiotics in them, and are an expensive waste of money. Even probiotic capsules that you swallow do not have many usable bacteria in them, so it is always best to at least put them in warm milk and leave them overnight before you take the probiotic capsule.

 

[Jacob Petersheim]

Hmm. Then can't you just start some and once finished reserve a small portion like a "sourdough bread starter" to add and make a new batch?