Milk Kefir

Last week I traded some of my water kefir grains for milk kefir. Though I'm not sure that grains is an accurate name or description for either one. First of all they aren't really grains. They are living, breathing, eating,  hopefully reproducing living organisms that ferment something and in the process carbonate it and make it an ultra-digestible, disease-fighting pro-biotic beverage.  Really, water kefir grains look like the "grains" of silicone that come in shoe boxes after they have absorbed a bunch of water, except the kefir can become larger, (the size of a pea). Milk kefir grains look like cauliflower. Yes, they really do. The only difference is that they are more milky-translucent than the dull white tinge of cauliflower and they have a slight gel-like appearance.

But, Today is the day! Admittedly I'm a litter nervous. Really I shouldn't be because I have tried plenty of other weird/ kookie/ hippie/ "crunchy" things before. Seriously now, I make and eat my own yogurt and keifir pop, and will eat home canned fruit that has that "this-has-begun-to-ferment" tingle to it.  (No lectures please. Baby and I are healthier than plenty if not most pregnant women I know who eat the Standard American Diet. Beside, I'll just ignore you the way I learned to when I was a teenager, except my pregnant self will try not to be annoyed and not to hold a grudge.)

So here it goes!

Batch 1 tastes ... tart and sour, which is perfectly acceptable. Tarter than I'd like at this point. Plus it is seperating a little and I don't rally like that texture. (I hope that this problem is not specific to fresh milk.)  I'll either get out some fruit to add and maybe a bit of stevia or I'll use it for baking.

Batch 2 is made from AE whole milk. It tastes ... Like thin plain yogurt: tart, but not overly so. Rather smooth. I stil think that I'd like to doctor it up for a bit. So that it is more of a drinkable thick beverage than a sippable one. Since I keep sipping at it I know that I find it appealing and will get used to the tartness.

Yeah!

By the way Mom, I hope that you are reading all the posts about cultures, because you may be taking care of them while I rest after Baby comes. If I end up taking antibiotics I will be requesting them in an effort to undo all the negative effects of the antibiotics.