A Bonnetful of Bees

Kefir is a fermented milk product, a little like yoghurt, but not as thick, or as sharply acid, a little like like a dairy version of sourdough bread.  It’s relatively unknown in New Zealand except among health food people, and even then not widely.  It deserves a lot more recognition.

According to enthusiasts, it’s simply chock full of probiotics, which aid your digestion, lower your blood pressure and your bad cholesterol, and enable dairy-sensitive persons to eat it in quantity and more easily absorb its calcium. These little fellows may also help you to win lotteries or change governments.  Even if it does none of those things or only some, it will still have a place in my fridge from now on in.  I’m a convert.  You cannot, at present, buy supermarket kefir in New Zealand, though you can buy a sachet of a commercial culture, XPL-1,  from Curds and Whey, a Grey Lynn based internet company, and make it yourself.  This costs you about $50 including freight, and will last you forever, almost.

For your $50 you get a sachet containing three or four teaspoonfuls of the freeze dried culture, a little like instant coffee or dried milk granules in appearance.  3 – 5 granules is enough to ferment 2 litres of milk, and from then on, just use a little of the existing batch to start the next lot.  Thirty generations down the track there has been no deterioration in quality from the original. The remaining granules in the sachet have a fridge life of two years, in case you need to start a fresh brew for any reason.  Or you can split the cost between several of you.

Also, for a new cream experience, try using the granules to ferment fresh cream.  You’ll get a thick velvety product that strawberries have been looking for for years, with or without icing sugar.

Kefir enthusiasts say commercial versions are missing many of the health benefits.  To be more precise, the “home brew version contains organisms from 4 groups: yeasts, lactobacilli, streptococci/lactococci, and acetobacter.  The grains are a living symbiosis of these organisms, and the product, “kefiran” which they produce in fermentation is not available in the commercial culture.

The commercial version has organisms from only one group, the streptococci/lactococci.

You can buy live kefir cultures, or “grains”, on Trademe for about $20 for a starter kit.  These can be variable in taste and quality, but Linda and Phil at Stillwater provided me with an excellent product.  These are a little trickier to manage, as the live “grains” of kefir need to be strained off each day and used to start the next day’s kefir, a bit like using a ginger beer plant.   (Also, like a ginger beerplant, you gradually grow more and more grains and you can give some to friends as an insurance policy. Or you can eat the excess.)

The flavour from the “real” kefir is a little sharper and more lively than the commercial product, but still very acceptable indeed.  You do need to pay it daily attention to keep it thriving, though it will last up to a fortnight in the fridge if you need to be away from home.

For more info, check out http://wudhi.com/recipes/kefir.htm

PS  I have no financial or any other kind of interest in either of the commercial outlets mentioned, except to recommend their quality products.