Recipes With Fermented Milk

Are you looking for an easy fermented drink to make at home? Then milk kefir is for you! You just need milk kefir grains, organic whole milk, a glass jar, a cloth covering, and a mesh strainer. You never have to replace the starter culture for milk kefir. Once you acquire milk kefir grains, they last forever as long as you feed them fresh milk. Homemade milk kefir is an affordable source of probiotics, vitamins, and nutrients.

This week I went on a deep internet dive to learn about the history of milk, and why humans started to consume milk from animals in the first place. I certainly learned a lot.

To summarize, someone used animal milk for nutrition, and probably survival, for the first time around 10, 000- 7, 500 years ago… Someone most likely observed the similarities of breastfeeding human babies and baby cattle, then made the decision that keeping the animal to consume its milk was a more reliable nutrition source than killing the animal and eating the meat. The milk was almost always naturally fermented into what we know as buttermilk, kefir, yogurt, and cheeses.

Fermented Drink Recipes From Around The World!

Since there were no refrigerators, milk was stored at ambient temperature in ceramic jars or canteens made from the stomachs of sheep. These vessels (and the utters of animals) harbored microbes that always led to some kind of natural fermentation, most similar to raw milk kefir.

The basic nutrients of kefir are similar to that of the milk from which it is produced. Thus, it is high in protein, healthy fats and calcium. The kefir fermentation process improves the nutritional value of milk by increasing the quantity, bioavailability, digestibility, and assimilability of vitamins and nutrients.

The word Kefir, which is derived from the Turkish word “keyif” means “good feeling” and I think that perfectly describes milk kefir! Kefir is known by a variety of names in other countries including képhir, kiaphur, kefyr, knapon, kepi, and kippi.

Cultured Dairy Foods (fermented Milk Recipes)

Anyways, after 5 years of not eating or drinking any dairy, I’ve been trying milk kefir and eating hard fermented cheeses! I’m very excited. I also now want a dairy cow… and Angora goats. I gave up dairy five years ago when I was healing my eczema, and thus my gut. Now, I am ready to reintroduce high-quality home fermented dairy into my diet.

For now, I am making milk kefir at home using organic non-homogenized cream top milk from a brand called Kalona Supernatural. It still includes the cream and comes from grass-grazed cows on small Amish and Mennonite family farms in the Midwest. Until I get land and animals of my own, this milk is a great option.

Goat milk kefir is quite delicious, but I usually use cow milk. It’s important to sterilize your milk before culturing. The only time I do not sterilize my milk is when the carton is brand-new and unopened. It’s very simple, you just have to heat the milk to 181° F, then cool it. Some people do make milk kefir using raw milk with great success, but I’ve never tried it. Using raw milk can introduce wild, sometimes unwanted microorganisms to the kefir.

How To Make Kefir: Easy Step By Step Tutorial For Milk Kefir

So what kind of microbes ferment milk into kefir? Many different types of yeasts and bacteria make up the microbial communities called kefir grains, and the specific species vary depending on where they are from and the milk used to feed them. Kefir grains consist of a a species rich and robust microbial community. Take a look at this chart from a published paper on Milk kefir: composition, microbial cultures, biological activities, and related products. It shows how diverse and species rich the microbial communities in the grains can be and how microbial composition varies by region:

Are you looking for an easy fermented drink to make at home? Then milk kefir is for you! You just need milk kefir grains, organic whole milk, a glass jar, a cloth covering, and a mesh strainer. You never have to replace the starter culture for milk kefir. Once you acquire milk kefir grains, they last forever as long as you feed them fresh milk. Homemade milk kefir is an affordable source of probiotics, vitamins and nutrients. enjoy a long and vibrant history. In every society that historically consumed dairy foods, homemade yogurt, kefir and similar foods made from fermented milk earned a much-loved and much-respected place in the human diet.

This list includes modern-day favorites such as Greek yogurt, sour cream, a variety of cheeses, and also more obscure cultured dairy products that are less easy to find such as bonny clabber, filmjolk, and blaand.

Ultimate Milk Kefir Guide (how To Make It, Troubleshooting Tips & More!)

Their honored place at the table is rightly deserved, too. While culturing milk and cream inevitably offered the practical benefit of enabling dairy foods to last longer; it also enhanced their nutrient profile.

Cultured dairy is any food made by introducing live bacteria into fresh milk. As dairy ferments, beneficial bacteria release lactic acid, creating an acidic environment that helps to preserve the milk. This is why cultured dairy products taste sour.

In essence, good bacteria convert the naturally occurring milk sugar (lactose) into acid. That process not only changes the flavor of the milk, but it also improves its nutritional profile and helps to preserve it for long-term storage.

Milk Kefir Recipe

This fermentation process is what converts milk into fresh cheese, drinkable yogurt, and other cultured dairy foods. It's also the reason yogurt and cheese have a longer shelf life than the cartons of milk you buy at the grocery store or from your local dairy.

Historically, dairying people who relied heavily on milk needed a way to preserve it during the winter months when fresh milk wasn't accessible. Fermenting milk offered the perfect solution to preserve the food

That lactic acid is what makes cultured dairy products taste sour. And it's those lactic acid bacteria (lactobacillus) that are also responsible for so many of fermented milk's health benefits.

Simple And Delicious Kefir Cheese

They're also the same kind of bacteria you find in other fermented food. This same class of beneficial bacteria turns cabbage into sauerkraut or cucumbers into sour pickles.

The live cultures convert the naturally occurring sugar in food into beneficial acids. In addition, they also release B vitamins during this process. That's why milk kefir and yogurt tend to be lower in sugar and often higher in some B vitamins than fresh milk. It's also why many people who are lactose intolerant can tolerate small amounts of hard cheeses or fermented dairy products.

When using grass-fed milk, it's also a good source of healthy fats such as conjugated linoleic acid as well as true, preformed vitamin A and vitamin K.

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Yogurt and similar foods are rich sources of probiotics, and researchers consider cultured milk to be a functional food. That means that it conveys more health benefits than nutrition alone.

Indeed, clinical studies have found that yogurt consumption supports the immune system, weight loss, and better metabolic health. It also appears to have a therapeutic effect on digestion, by helping to support and diversify gut microbiota.

You can use any type of milk. Whole, low-fat, and even skim milk work for most fermented milk products. Avoid using plant-based milks, such as coconut milk.

How To Make Milk Kefir At Home

Plant-based milks lack the amino acids and protein structure you'll find in regular milk. In absence of milk proteins, plant-based milk ferments will lack structure, and so you'll need to add thickeners that you don't need when you use real milk. So, it's best to use specific recipes developed for their use.

In addition to milk, you'll also need a source of bacteria. For most cultured dairy foods, you'll use a starter culture or mother culture. These dairy cultures contain live active bacteria, such as streptococcus thermophilus and lactobacillus bulgaricus.

This starter can come in the form of a special culture, such as kefir grains which are added to milk, strained, and then reused, or an heirloom yogurt starter from a previous batch.

Kefir Sour Cream

For other fermented milk products, you'll depend on wild bacteria. This is the case for bonny clabber, a type of wild-fermented milk that thickens to curds as it sits. Instead of a starter, it depends on the native bacteria in raw milk to ferment correctly.

Once you've added the bacterial culture to your milk, you simply need to wait. Some forms of cultured milk depend on warm temperatures, while others benefit from culturing at room temperature.

For those foods, such as yogurt, that need warmth to culture correctly. So you'll add the starter to warm milk. While others, such as kefir, work well by adding the starter directly to cold milk and letting it ferment at room temperature. When it's done, and pleasantly sour, you'll transfer it to the fridge for cold storage.

Simple Milk Kefir Yeast Bread Recipe

The fermentation time varies depending on the individual recipe and which fermented milk product you're making. Yogurt, for example, typically ferments within about 4 to 6 hours while kefir can take 1 to 2 days. Most varieties of cheese will need to age much longer, but fresh cheeses such as cream cheese and chèvre have a shorter fermentation period.

These recipes for yogurt, kefir, and other fermented dairy foods are easy to make, and you'll also have