All sour-milk products were once only domestic, since the dairy industry appeared, figuratively speaking, yesterday, and the animals that produce milk were tamed by humans more than ten thousand years ago.
Since then, it was at home that people learned to make different products from ordinary milk.
Progress and urbanization took mankind far from the origins, where you could live in harmony with nature, eat natural, environmentally friendly products, and at the same time, in case of health problems, be treated with what nature gave.
Interesting about homemade kefir from milk
The history of the appearance of kefir in Russia and on the territory of Eastern Europe looks like a beautiful fairy tale - at the beginning, and in the second part there are even two versions of the leak of the recipe for a secret Caucasian drink of the same name.
Highlanders believe in legend that they got the recipe for home-made kefir from milk from the prophet Mohammed himself, along with the mysterious "yellow balls" that had to be added to the drink. The great prophet ordered not to reveal the secret of the "grains" to the Gentiles. But, as one of the versions of the appearance of kefir in Russia narrates, one Chechen, nevertheless, gave the secret along with kefir fungi to his friend, a Russian doctor who visited the Caucasus. It was in 1886.
Another version, directly, as in the famous comedy about the Caucasian captive, talks about the abduction of a beautiful girl. Only the abduction was double - oh, those highlanders! After her successful liberation, in compensation for moral damage, the young assistant to the Russian dairy producer Blandova received the cherished "grains of Mohammed", for which she, in fact, went on a trip to the Caucasus. The story did not end as romantically as it began, but kefir "went to the people" in 1908, thanks to the practicality and business qualities of an adventurer. Apparently, the kefir fungi donated to the doctor were used up for scientific experiments and the study of microorganisms, because the society of Russian doctors asked the aforementioned dairy plant to establish mass production of kefir, which Blandov performed thanks to the beauty of his assistant Irina Sakharova.
It is not known which version is genuine, but the word "kefir" phonetically coincides exactly with the name of this drink in the language of the peoples of Ossetia. It would be much more interesting to learn about the "grains" presented by Mohammed: were they exactly the same as are now used to make kefir; or, perhaps, the whole point is that the mountaineers stored milk in bags of animal skin, and from this it acquired such a peculiar taste after souring the milk? But why then, after the wineskins were replaced with clay jugs, did the taste of Caucasian kefir remain the same? Why did the fermented milk, in the same jugs, among the hostesses of the Little Russian province, Don Cossacks and other owners of pottery in the nineteenth century not become kefir, but remained curdled milk?
Homemade milk kefir - an ideal formula for storage and benefits
Of course, completely abandoning the achievements of science and technological progress would be foolish, but the trouble is that often modern food manufacturers, unlike Blandov, forget that you can’t earn all the money, even using the latest developments in the food industry, because from thirst for profit, quality and consumer confidence are lost.
Adding preservatives to increase shelf life makes kefir useless, and sometimes even harmful. For example, sour-milk bacteria in canned form is nonsense. What benefits can they bring to digestion when they are dead? But the dairy plant, having “euthanized” microorganisms in the composition of “live” milk with additives, ultra-pasteurization, and other industrial “tricks”, will not be left at a loss - a plastic bottle with kefir can calmly stand on the shelf for a month until it is bought in a hurry or due to lack of knowledge of the city Everyman who does not know about dairy technology and healthy nutrition. Sane people and nutritionists understand that such a product is worthless, because it is a useless biomass in expensive packaging, and not a source of beneficial bacteria and vitamins for the body. You can write anything on the packaging, but under the plastic the product itself is not visible and, even visually, you cannot judge its quality until you bring it home and print it.
Naturally, protecting, first of all, his health, each person is looking for an alternative. If we approach the issue of saving the family budget, we can easily calculate that a half-liter bottle of full-fledged home-made kefir from milk costs at least two times cheaper than the same amount of product from the best producer, and even with retail margins network, advertising and transport logistics managers.
For the sake of justice it should be noted that not every day you want to go to the store for fresh kefir, when after work you fall down from exhaustion or in a hurry, or just forget. Therefore, although you know that, in fact, only the freshest kefir is useful, you drink the one that was left from yesterday or the day before in a printed bottle in the refrigerator.
The interest in the composition of kefir is caused precisely by a set of microorganisms, thanks to which the drink has gained wide popularity not only as a product - it is widely used in dietetics and medical nutrition.
Having barely appeared in Europe, kefir attracted the attention of microbiologists who carefully studied its probiotic properties - the effect of microorganisms on the intestinal microflora and their participation in metabolism. A special taste of kefir is formed by a Bulgarian wand, so named after its discoverer, the young Bulgarian scientist Stamen Grigorov, who lived in the nineteenth century, a contemporary of the Russian Nobel Prize winner Ilya Mechnikov, who devoted his work to the study of lactic acid bacteria and propagated the use of probiotic products in the composition of sour.
Bacteria, like any living organism, require certain conditions for normal life - oxygen, nutrients, temperature. In the absence of one of these conditions, the bacteria die. In order not to overload readers with purely scientific information, we pay attention to the main points that must be considered when buying, storing or making homemade kefir from milk.
The temperature necessary for the fermentation of milk, at the time when the bacteria multiply in the milk environment, and fermentation occurs, should not be lower than 18 ° C and not higher than 23 ° C. At the same time, bacteria need oxygen, so when fermenting milk, the dishes are not tightly closed, but only protect the mass from the ingress of foreign impurities and harmful microorganisms. Bacteria receive food in abundance from milk containing the whole complex of necessary substances for their vital functions. After milk is completely processed and turns into kefir, the growth and reproduction of bacteria must be stopped. To do this, the finished drink is placed in a cooler place. At a temperature of 2-6 ° C, microorganisms fall into a state of suspended animation when they do not need oxygen or nutrition.
The highest quality and useful, healing properties have fresh, one-day kefir. Longer storage turns kefir into a regular, sour-milk drink, with a high level of acidity, not always pleasant taste properties. After 72 hours from the date of manufacture, unused kefir can be used, perhaps, for the preparation of dough, since its biological value is lost. The high level of acidity, which is reached by this time, can already adversely affect digestion, while in the test, in combination with baking powder, kefir helps to provide a lift and prepare magnificent pastries.
Homemade kefir from milk is a healthy and healthy food made by human hands, rather than conveyor lines of modern production, is increasingly returning to its previous position, and the regular searches for information about home technologies, forgotten recipes for homemade kefir from milk serve as evidence of this. Having received the necessary information about the technology of dairy products in your own kitchen, trained and mastered the simple skills of making homemade kefir from milk, you can solve all the problems at once - with the family budget, saving time and taking care of health.
Homemade kefir from milk: microorganisms work - do not bother them!
If with homemade cottage cheese, sour cream and yogurt - everything is simple, then for home-made kefir from milk the usual one-component sourdough is not enough. All answers to questions about the peculiar taste of kefir are revealed by bacteriology, which studied the interaction of microorganisms in a dairy environment. They are present in our lives everywhere, not only in wineskins and jugs. Knowing what microorganisms are part of the bacterial starter culture is necessary not only for preparing homemade kefir from milk - its storage and use will be more effective in combination with an understanding of the composition of a fermented milk drink.
Sour milk, sour cream and cottage cheese are obtained as a result of fermented milk fermentation, when milk sticks and cocci (balls) get into milk - the simplest, unicellular microorganisms that form lactic acid as a result of their vital activity. Casein (milk protein) coagulates in an acidic environment and serum is formed. But in kefir, in addition to lactic acid, there is a gas that tastes with a slight tingling on the tongue. This is because there is lactose in milk - milk sugar, and any sugar is a favorable environment for alcoholic yeast - another group of microorganisms. Moreover, milk bacteria and alcohol yeast peacefully coexist with each other, and even help: lactobacilli, forming lactic acid, contribute to the release of milk sugar, which is necessary for alcohol yeast.
Now it becomes clear why kefir appeared in a jug in the Caucasus, and not in Russia: the mild mountain climate of the Caucasus with developed viticulture and winemaking, wine that was also traditionally stored in wineskins and jugs - a few drops of young wine could well remain at the bottom of the vessel, and wine is also wine yeast. Then they poured milk into a jug or a wineskin from under the wine, and quite by chance a sour-milk drink with a light hoppy flavor was born. Indeed, in kefir contains up to 1% alcohol, and in koumiss and some other types of kefir - up to 3%.
As you can see, the whole technology of making homemade kefir from milk is to put bacteria and yeast in milk, create a comfortable microclimate for them, and they will do the rest of the work themselves.
Homemade kefir from milk - how to choose and save sourdough
We turn to the question of leaven for kefir. Here it is necessary to dwell in detail on the question of what constitutes real kefir leaven. As mentioned above, its composition must necessarily include a Bulgarian chopstick. Also required is the presence of acidophilus bacillus, thermophilic streptococci, bacteria involved in the synthesis of riboflavin - only 8 types of bacteria. Remembering them without even knowing the basics of bacteriology is a difficult task, so you just need to know that without these microorganisms it is impossible to get the taste or properties of real kefir.
There are two simple ways to get it: buy the finished mixture in a specialized retail network or spend once on a bottle of kefir, where the composition of the product will be written in detail and honestly on the label.
Of dry starter cultures, the best option is VIVO. If this mixture is difficult to get, go to the dairy kitchen for babies - there buy a glass bottle with the freshest kefir, just remember to leave then 250 ml of cooked homemade kefir from milk to add it for the next serving. In a film or a plastic bottle, it’s better not to try to find sufficiently active microorganisms - it will turn out, at best, delicious yogurt.
But there is a third option - use wine yeast in combination with any sour-milk bacteria and grow a colony of microorganisms on your own, which will become assistants in making your own, home-made kefir from milk, if you decide that an environmentally friendly and fresh product is necessary in the house constantly. Of course, an identical taste is not guaranteed, but there is no doubt that you will get a useful symbiosis of lactobacilli and yeast.
Homemade kefir from milk - raw materials and the sequence of preparation of the drink
For kefir use any, both fresh and pasteurized milk - cow, goat, camel, mare, buffalo. True, the composition of each of these types of milk has a difference. Accordingly, koumiss also get mare's milk. Ayran is made from goat and sheep, and with the addition of spicy herbal infusions, salt - tan. The assortment of fermented milk drinks identical to kefir in the cuisines of different nations is not exhausted.
In industrial conditions, milk for kefir is pasteurized. Ultra-pasteurized and sterilized milk does not contain any bacteria and vitamins. At a pasteurization temperature of 63 ° C, not only harmful microorganisms, but also lactobacilli die within 30 minutes, and for Bulgarian sticks the critical temperature is even lower, 50 ° C. At a temperature of 80-85 ° C, pasteurization lasts 10 minutes, and at 90-93 ° C, milk is pasteurized for 2-3 minutes. At 100 ° C, the texture of the milk is broken, and it becomes unsuitable for the formation of a clot during ripening.
In industrial conditions, between pasteurization and the introduction of starter culture, there is an intermediate stage - the homogenization of milk. The essence of this process is breaking up the fat globules to create a homogeneous mass with the required consistency. At this point, the milk is distilled under pressure into another tank. For home technology, you can skip this operation or use a blender (mixer) to mix the milk.
The next stage is the introduction of kefir yeast. After cooling to 18-23 ° C, kefir yeast is introduced into milk purified from pathogenic organisms. The leaven is pre-soaked in water at a temperature of 28-30 ° C for 24 hours, and at the same time, water is changed every 8 hours. After swelling of the starter culture, it is added to the prepared milk. The ratio of the volume of introduced starter and milk is 1:10. That is, the prepared sourdough is 100 ml for every liter of milk. Fermented milk is mixed for 20-30 minutes, and then left to ripen, without touching it.
When cooling and ripening, kefir is aged 10-12 hours at a temperature of 18-20 ° C. After the finished kefir is thoroughly mixed again, poured into clean jars and put away for storage at 2-6 ° C.
Try to make homemade kefir from milk yourself.
Recipe 1. Kefir from fresh skim milk in a slow cooker
Composition:
Milk 2.5% 1.5 L
Ferment, kefir (ready) 150 ml
Cooking:
Pasteurize milk by setting one of the modes above. Prepare kefir fungi, after soaking them in warm water for a day. Pour the prepared milk into a container with warm, prepared sourdough and mix the mass for 15-20 minutes. Cover the container and put in heat for 12 hours. After cooked kefir mix again. Leave some of the product to prepare the drink next time.
Recipe 2. Homemade milk kefir - yogurt, Armenian
Composition:
- Homemade milk, cow 2.0 L
Sourdough composition: thermophilic streptococci, acidophilus and Bulgarian bacillus
Cooking Technology:
The traditional Armenian drink is slightly different from the technology of making kefir. For its preparation, homemade whole milk is used, which is brought to a temperature close to boiling (90-95 ° C), after which it is cooled to 37 ° C and a special yeast is introduced. Instead, you can use previously prepared yogurt. To maintain the required temperature for 4 hours, place milk in a thermos or keep it in a slow cooker. After ripening the jar of yogurt, without stirring, move to the refrigerator until a more dense consistency and sour taste are formed. Yogurt is usually eaten with a spoon.
Acidophilic bacteria traditionally prevail in the sourdough for the Armenian matsoni, while for the souring of the Georgian yogurt, a larger amount of the Bulgarian stick is required.
Recipe 3. Homemade milk kefir - ayran (tan)
Composition:
Goat milk 1.0 L
Lipase 1.5 g (per 50 ml of warm water)
Thermophilic streptococci and Bulgarian stick (ready-made sourdough) 100 ml
Cooking Technology:
To prepare Ayran, milk must be pasteurized and a lipase solution added. For this, the abomasum is added to pasteurized milk and heated at 35-37 ° C until a clot forms, that is, you must first prepare the yogurt, mix it well and add the kefir starter, having prepared the solution in advance. After you need to keep the mixture warm, mix again. Ayran is eaten with a spoon to satisfy hunger. If ayran is used as a drink, then 30% of mineral water with gas is added to it.
The recipe for tan exactly matches the recipe for ayran, but salt is added to the tan. Ayran is also prepared with the addition of herbal infusions, it can be made on the basis of cow or sheep’s milk.
Homemade Kefir from Milk - Useful Tips and Tricks
From kefir and carbonated mineral water, you can cook okroshka using a drink instead of kvass. Such a dish will be completely dietary.
"Overdue" kefir is an excellent ingredient for making unleavened dough for dumplings, pies, pancakes, pies.
Remember that kefir 24 hours after manufacture has no healing properties.
If a separation of whey mass and a clot is found in a can of kefir, then proceed to kneading the dough - it is no longer possible to drink kefir in this form.
