I like to make kefir at home. You can find many resources that teach you how to make kefir, but I know of a way to do it that is a little different. This article assumes that you at least know the basics of making kefir. I’ll go over how I do it, but I assume you know all about how long to ferment it and what a properly fermented batch looks like.

Several years ago when I started making kefir, my kefir grains multiplied to the point where I could ferment a gallon of milk at a time. The problem here is that since I’m the only one who actually drank it at the time, and it only takes 24-48 hours to ferment, I couldn’t drink it fast enough. The other problem I had came in the summer. Kefir ferments much faster when it’s hot. I lived in an apartment where the temperature easily reached 80-85 degrees Fahrenheit, and I usually went to my parents’ lake house on summer weekends, so I didn’t want to leave a gallon of explosively fermenting milk sitting alone in the kitchen. We actually turned off the window air conditioners when we went away for the weekend and it was a second floor apartment so the temperatures actually got a lot higher. I decided to try a cold ferment. The colder the temperature, the slower the ferment. Now, you can mix this up however you like. You can start at room temperature to make it work and then put it in the fridge when it has reached the proper “done point” and leave it there where it will continue to ferment but at a much slower rate. You can take your time getting to it and you don’t have to worry about it exploding or turning into cheese.

Let’s review the first part of the ferment, which is the basics of making kefir. Wash your hands well before proceeding.

First you need kefir grains, which are small, rubbery-textured tints of white that look like cauliflower florets. No one has been able to figure out where the first ones came from or by what mechanism they were first created. They get bigger and fall off the biggest part a little bit and then those parts in turn get bigger in the milk until they have bits that fall off and grow and it goes on and on and on. As far as is known, all kefir grains on earth come from the first batches in the Russo-Georgian region of the Caucasus ridge, where Muslim tribes considered them a gift from God like the manna that fed the ancient Israelites in the desert even before that.

You also need milk. You can use any type of mammalian milk, but the most common are cow, goat, and sheep. I personally have made kefir with both cow’s and goat’s milk. I prefer the flavor of goat’s milk to cow’s milk and I like goat’s kefir better too, but I make it in small batches due to the high cost of goat’s milk. To make a gallon, only use cow’s milk as long as you are okay with it and there are no allergies to bovine mammary secretions (milk). Where I live, I am lucky to be able to source organic, grass-fed, I guess, creamy non-homogenized milk from Jersey cows, which is MUCH creamier and fattier than the more commonly available, more watery milk from Holstein cows. Unfortunately for most people, they get stuck with homogenized Holstein milk mixed with BGH from grain-fed cows. Hey, use what you have. Kefir will even make the milk safe to drink, but you can opt for organic milk from grass-fed cows.

You will need some bowls and tools. I prefer Pyrex style glass bowls and plastic ladle and strainer. You need plastic tools and not metal ones for all of this. Also, try to use glass containers, measuring cups, etc. I also use a Pyrex style quartz pouring container with a handle. I put down paper towels to catch any drips, but it’s not necessary. You want all your things to be clean. You also need containers to store the strained kefir. I use clean old plastic mayonnaise jars. They are made of food grade plastic. Use plastic or glass suitable for food use. This is optional but really adds to the drinking ability. A kitchen mixer or an electric hand mixer. You should also have at least two large gallon size glass jars with clip-on lids and rubber gaskets. That’s what I use. You can use any glass jar or food-grade plastic jar. I recommend a large one to keep all your milk and grains in one container, but I guess you can split it all up into two smaller ones if the big one is too unwieldy for some reason. You will also need a large wide-mouthed funnel. This is also optional, but we’ll see where it comes in handy later.

Put all your things. This is all assuming that you already have enough kefir grains to make this large batch and that you were already fermenting at least once to make a batch. I should have put it all together and fermented it and then chilled in the fridge to slow down or start it at room temperature and then have it cold for a longer amount of time to allow your intake to catch up with its fermentation or maybe you just wanted to take a break from making and drinking kefir for a while.

Take the jar out of the fridge that has been cold fermenting and carefully, on a towel spread out on a counter, gently shake or swirl to mix the curds, whey and fat that may have separated a bit. You want it to flow as free as possible to pour into the strainer.

Attach your plastic strainer, which should have holes large enough to allow the oily mixture to pass through, but not large enough to lose too many small grains into the kefir. If the holes are too small, you’ll be standing there with a strainer full of kefir that never drains. You may want to experiment with some, but they have to be plastic, not metal. The strainer should also be large enough that the rim of the strainer fits just over the edge of the bowl, so that you don’t have to hold it constantly, and that there is enough room under the strainer for the leaked milk to collect there.

Open the fermented jar carefully because there is carbon dioxide that you will want to escape. Hold the large jar with fermented kefir in both hands and slowly pour as much as you can into the strainer so that it is full. There may be some splashing and splashing as the grains and lumpy milk hit the lumpy milk. This is normal. Set the jar down and lift the strainer by the handle and gently rock or rock the strainer back and forth to encourage movement and the straining process. If all goes well, you should have a strainer full of grains and a bowl full of kefir. Pour the beans in the strainer into the other bowl, or just keep them in the strainer, but for now place the strainer in that other bowl to keep everything straight and neat.

The next part is optional, but if you don’t, your kefir will be lumpy and the lumpy, gritty texture will put many people off, especially children. Also, this step will slow or stop the tendency of the chilled strained kefir to separate into curds and whey. All you need to do to mix them up is give them a light shake or flip the bowl a few times, but still.

You can pour the strained kefir into a blender, but I prefer one of those handy electric hand mixers. Get a clean plate to put it on between uses, as I’m assuming all the effort up to this point needs to be repeated at least once and it will drip. Just insert the hand mixer into the bowl of strained kefir and mix a few times by pressing or pressing the button. You can wiggle the mixing end to make sure you get everything, but keep it fairly well submerged or you’ll end up with kefir all over the place. I know from experience. Now your kefir will have a delicious creamy and silky texture. You can add mango nectar or some other fruit juice or something like that at this point for flavor if you don’t like the taste of plain sweet and sour kefir. You can mix each container you are going to fill with a different flavoring. If you do, make sure you don’t overfill it with kefir and leave enough room for the flavor component AND the mixer end. Also, if mixing in a plastic bowl or container, be careful not to touch or rub the bottom with the mixing end. You don’t want plastic shavings in your kefir. That is why I prefer to mix it in a glass container.

I want to go on a little tangent here regarding flavor. Once at an Indian restaurant with an Indian colleague, we had a delicious Mango Lassi, which is an Indian fermented milk drink. It was pale yellow in color and delicious. It tasted like mango. One day in the supermarket I found a Goya Mango Nectar. It comes in glass jars and is quite reasonable. It’s Spanish in origin, and unless you make a distinction, the added sweet component is sugar, not the toxic high fructose corn syrup that plagues American-made sweetened beverages. The light bulb went on and I was reminded of the tasty mango lassi from the Indian restaurant. I bought a few bottles, took them home, and mixed some into the kefir until I found the right concentration for my taste. It also had the amazing side effect of my 9 year old drinking the healthy kefir drink, which he won’t touch himself. Chocolate syrup (organic from an organic market) is also a popular children’s flavoring for kefir.

Well, after the jars are filled with kefir and the strained container is empty or nearly empty, repeat the pour, strain, and mix process for this batch. Once your jars are full, you can now finish. I have two large gallon jugs, one that was cleaned last time and the one I just emptied. If you’re only using one, now is the time to give the jar a good wipe down and dry it with paper towels. Your regular towels may have germs on them and you want to get the chlorinated water out of the tap. Then, place the wide-mouthed funnel over the top and use the ladle to scoop the big mound of kefir grains out of the strainer and into the pitcher. When done, pour a gallon of fresh milk over them, cap it, shake it a few times to inoculate the milk well, then set it on the counter to start the new ferment. In about 24 hours, put it back in the back of the fridge for a week or several months, if necessary.

There you have it, delicious cold fermented kefir. It’s also worth noting that a lot of times when I make it this way, it’s loaded with little carbon bubbles that really make it the champagne of lattes.