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Old 12-19-2014, 02:36 PM   #2
ATDrake
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I've made kefir before, using starter culture* from Yogourmet (a Canadian company whose website says they're also distributed in the US) which is sold in one of my local shops.

Very easy to do and required no special equipment, just heat up the milk in the microwave, let it cool enough to mix in the starter, and then stick it in the toaster oven (off, just so I have some reasonably sheltered place to put it; it could probably have gone on top of the fridge like some cookbooks advise for keeping rising bread dough warm) to help it incubate and leave it overnight and into the next evening, according to the packet directions.

I found out that if you mix in skim milk powder for a more solid consistency, you end up with something very, very solid indeed and I was surprised that it ended up setting much firmer than my yogurt culture which went into a dedicated yogurt maker that actually has controlled continuous warming.

(That said, mixing kefir and yogurt starter cultures together when making yogurt doesn't seem to significantly affect the texture of the resulting yogurt, even with extra skim milk powder added.)

* It contains 6 packets which do a litre of milk each for about $5 CAD around here, and Wikipedia's entry on kefir says that you can DIY by reusing your starter-cultured kefir to begin your own cultures, although you won't get the distinctive graininess with further batches (I've never tried this, so I couldn't possibly say if that was accurate or not).
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