I received a question recently, if you should introduce Kefir carefully. I've never come across that you should need to. But of course, if you know that you or your child is very sensitive, don't drink a whole litre right away😘, but I can't see that half a glass to start with could do any harm (a bit less of course for a child), until you feel safe drinking it.
The Kefir grains is a bacteria "colony", so when you get your first grains, they can be a bit chocked from have been "fractioned" from their habitual size of colony. Fill with milk, ratio about 3dl milk to 1,5 tbs grain. But observe, Not lactose free milk. Lactose is what they eat in the milk, and the grains will starv if there's no lactose. I prefere whole milk, low fat works as well, but whole milk will make the kefir creamier.
Since the lactose is being consumed by the Kefir grains, most lactose intolerants can digest Kefir. But, do try it out carefully!
Drain when you think the Kefir has thickened enough. Taste and find your favorite tartness and tecture. At first it can take a couple of days. Store the jar in room temp, in a dark cupboard or under a cloth on the counter, away from light, especially sunshine. Don't worry to open the jar and stir and taste, they're not easily bothered😁. Make it a little more carefully in the beginning though.
When your "colony has acclimatized in your home, they'll start grow in numbers (eventually a Lot 😄) and make thick and smooth Kefir.
Yes the colony Grow in size, so soon enough you'll notice that you'll have to give away grains to just anyone that'll exept them, neighbours, family, friends!! And lol, when you still have too much, Eat them! Throw them in smoothies! Dig them down as nutrition in your garden soil! Give them as healthy snacks to your cat and dog!
When the amount of grain is too much for the amount of milk, or if they've fermented for too long, the Kefir can spontaniously separate, meaning that the wey will sink to the bottom (warmth speeds up the fermentation, and it will separate quicker). Don't worry, just stir and drain it as usual, it can be a bit more sour though. Dare to experiment, the grains are great survivors! The only thing that kills them is heat, or lack of food. Kefir fights off the bad critters (mould, putrefaction bacteria etc.) if the Kefir colony is healthy, so you don't really need to clean the jar every time you drain the grains. What's left in the jar can function as a "starter", just pour the grains back into the jar, and pour some new fresh milk over them. How much there is in the jar doesn't matter, just the ratio.
Cream is not very good though to ferment in Kefir grains. The cream have a tendency to stick so hard to the grains, that it gets almost impossible to drain them. Use the fermented milk as a starter in your cream instead, and leave it in the fridge for a while, 3-5 days, or more, you try it out, it depends on how cold they're stored, and the amount, try room temp if nothing happens.
If you cook with Kefir, it'll still be benificially broken down by the bacteria, making the milk more digestible for us, but the benificial bacteria will be gone.
It's my warm reccommendation that you have a "safety sample" in the freezer, in case something goes wrong with the grains. Put aside some grains when they've acclimatised and function perfectly. I did a long pause, and found some stored Kefir in the freezer. They had a note on them showing that I froze them two years earlier. I thought I'd give them a try anyway. Amazingly they did their work from day one, defrosting in milk!!
Never rinse your grain in water. Only rinse them if very necessary, and in that case in milk.
Shure, one can be a bit bored on doing the straining every day after a while. If that's the case, store the jar in the fridge instead of on the counter. In the fridge the fermentation will get much slower, and you might only need to drain once a week, or once every two weeks (same if you go on vacation, pour a bit more milk than usually, so they have food enough, the grains is amazing survivors!)
Much of what I've learned about Kefir, beside practicing and experimenting, have I learned from this site:
https://web.archive.org/web/20210506115922/http://users.sa.chariot.net.au/~dna/Makekefir.html
Donna Schwenk (my favourite Kefir Guru), once said "What's not mentioned on Dom's Kefir, is not worth knowing. Well, that is maybe 15 years ago, so that might've changed. Dominique is no longer with us, but his page thankfully lives on in the Web-Archive!
So;
Here's some nerd info for the interested 😎 Compare this amount of benificial bacterial- and yeast-strains in Kefir, with the amount of strains in your favourite probiotica capsules 👀😲 ...just sayin'
