kefir – Harmonious Belly

October 2, 2015October 2, 2015

Learning About Natural Cheesemaking With David Asher in Brooklyn

Yogurt cheese, perfect for a beginner like me.

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of attending a day of cheesemaking workshops with David Asher, a cheesemaker who runs the Black Sheep School of Cheesemaking, a “traveling cheese school” with origins in the Gulf Islands region of British Columbia. The folks from Slow Food organized these workshops and a reception the Friday evening before. After having had a look at Asher’s remarkable book, The Art of Natural Cheesemaking, they were so impressed with the knowledge within, they felt compelled to invite David Asher to come to NYC and teach classes on his unique style of cheesemaking.

A big part of this book asserts that you do not need to buy freeze dried cultures to make cheese, and that it can all be done with kefir, which contains most bacteria needed to culture milk for cheese; using raw milk is encouraged for the most part, too. Rennet is also employed in making many of the cheeses, while a simple acid—lemon juice, vinegar, or kefir—is used in a small number of cheeses to separate out curds and whey. Bottom line—industrial practices and ingredients are unnecessary to make delicious, flavorful cheeses.

The building that houses Crown Finish Caves. The light was beautiful that evening.

I chose to attend the reception and take the first day of workshops. The reception was quite nice, and took place in one of the tunnels at Crown Finish Caves, a cheese aging facility located three stories below street level; originally the space was a brewery. Because it is so far below ground and the walls are so thick, it keeps a relatively constant temperature, perfect for affinage, or, aging cheese. A number of farms create their cheeses and age them here.

The tunnel in which we attended the reception and heard David Asher talk about kefir and cheese.

At the reception, which took place in one of the tunnels, David talked a lot about kefir, his love for it, and its usefulness in making cheese. Before the talk there was traditional music played by a small band, a little local food and drink, and lots of cheese afterwards. David even passed out kefir grains to anyone who wanted one (they were quite large). I put mine in dead (UHT) milk and it fermented it! The magic of kefir.

The next morning I returned to Brooklyn for a day of making simple cheeses—yogurt cheese (and yogurt), paneer, and chevre. Each of these is created differently—to make yogurt cheese, you hang full fat yogurt in butter muslin (or a du-rag) until the whey drips away; for paneer, you boil milk and add acid, which creates curds and whey; and with chevre, you add kefir and rennet, and hang the cheese like yogurt cheese, or you can ladle it into forms. Continue reading “Learning About Natural Cheesemaking With David Asher in Brooklyn”

March 5, 2012March 4, 2012

How To Make Water Kefir

If you’ve been watching my Harmonious Belly Facebook page over the past couple of months, you know that I’ve been doing a lot with water kefir. It’s been really interesting, a lot of fun, and yields a very tasty beverage. I’ve gotten some positive feedback on the water kefir drinks I’ve created, so I must be doing something right. I thought I’d share a little bit of what I’ve learned. I tend to take a simple approach to making this probiotic beverage, and some of my practices may be controversial, but they have served me well so far.

1. I bought my kefir grains from Cultures For Health. They arrived dehydrated and I rehydrated them with water and organic sugar. It was very easy to do this. Instructions come with the kefir grains.

I had heard that water kefir grains were more crystaline than dairy kefir grains. I was under the impression that they were hard, like actual crystals. Turns out they are soft, and you could crush them with little effort between your fingers. From a visual standpoint, though, they do look like bits of crystals.

2. I use regular old tap water to make my water kefir. NYC has some of the tastiest water in the country – we drink our water at home pretty much exclusively from our tap. NYC water also contains both chlorine and fluoride, which some people really don’t want to ingest. I have not run into any problems with them from a robust fermentation standpoint.

Most literature on water kefir says to avoid water with these things added to it. If I could easily and practically avoid them, I would. You may prefer to get rid of the chlorine (not much can be done about the fluoride), and that is done by boiling the water and letting it sit overnight. I’ve also read that you can just let it sit out for 24 hours and the chlorine will evaporate.

I could put my water through a Britta or PUR type filter, but I really hate that everything involved with a filter like this is plastic-based. I really don’t want to add more plastic to my life. Plus they are not cheap. So, after taking all things into account – convenience and cost being the primary issues – I decided to experiment with plain tap water. I have had great success – my grains are healthy, not slimy and they have no off odor or color. I check them each time I make a new batch of kefir.

Continue reading “How To Make Water Kefir”

March 17, 2010June 19, 2011

Cultured and Fermented Foods – Yogurt, Kefir, Kombucha

fermented foods

Some of the most delicious traditional foods I’ve tasted are cultured and fermented food and drink. Before I started eating such things, I really had no idea how extensively humans utilized fermentation, aside from yogurt and kefir. I’ve found that I love the raw yogurt and kefir I get from the farm as well as their kombucha. Plus, my body loves these fermented and cultured products – when I eat them, I feel great!

So, when I first started drinking raw dairy, I limited myself to just drinking fresh cow’s milk. I was comfortable with that, and I was just trying it out (so I thought). I didn’t anticipate how much I’d come to love it compared to the conventional organic milk I had been drinking.

It was only after a few months that I even considered moving beyond that to exploring the raw cultured and fermented dairy available to me. I’ve been eating yogurt for ages, so I tried that first. Delicious! I actually had tasted kefir before, but I suspected that this raw kefir was going to be different from the essentially “drinkable yogurt” I’d consumed before. I tried it, and found it to be quite tasty, too, but definitely different from yogurt.

Along with these two dairy products, I started drinking (and brewing) kombucha. I took a kombucha brewing class at The Brooklyn Kitchen, which was a lot of fun and very informative. I brewed kombucha pretty regularly until I moved and my SCOBY kicked the bucket. I now purchase kombucha from the same place as where I get my raw dairy, and plan to start up the brewing process again later this spring.

After a conversation I had with my friend Charlene, I started to wonder how the bacteria differ among the three products I eat on a regular basis: yogurt, kefir, and kombucha. They all contain probiotics for a healthy gut, but different kinds of friendly bacteria. I decided to do some research.

Yogurt is ubiquitous. It’s in all the supermarkets and convenience stores. It is considered to be a true health food, and is delicious. It is made from whole milk, lowfat and nonfat milk, but I prefer to eat yogurt made with non-homogenized whole milk.

Yogurt is made by heating milk at a low temperature and combining it with bacteria to encourage fermentation (which then preserves the milk). The most common bacteria in yogurt are: Lactobacillus bulgaricus and L. acidophilus (this produces vitamin K, lactase, and several anti-microbial substances). Streptococcus lactis, S. cremoris, thermophilus, and L. plantarum (also found in lacto-fermented vegetables) may also be present. In short, lactobacillus helps convert lactose and other sugars to lactic acid, and Streptococcus is the force behind the souring and coagulation of milk.

Yogurt has been made for millennia and is one of the oldest ways of preserving milk.

Milk Kefir resembles yogurt in it tartness, but does not share the same texture. It is produced by combining milk and kefir “grains”, which are a SCOBY – a Symbiotic Colony Of Bacteria and Yeast. The grains kind of look a little like lumps of small tapioca balls smushed together in a rough paste, and have a spongy texture.

The grains are placed in the milk and the mixture is allowed to ferment for as short as 24 hours. Kefir can become slightly alcoholic (about 1%) if let go for an extended period. Each time you make kefir, the grains grow and expand, so people tend to share their kefir grains with others.

kefir grains

Kefir shares some bacteria with yogurt, including Lactobacillus bulgaricus, L. acidophilus, Streptococcus lactis, S. cremoris, thermophilus and L. plantarum. Additionally, Lactococus lactis subsp. Lactis, Lactococus lactis subsp. Cremoris, Lactococus lactis subsp. Diacetylactis, Leuconostoc mesenteroides subsp. Cremoris (also found in cultured butter), Lactobacillus kefyr, Kliyveromyces marxianus var. marxainus, Saccharomyces unisporus (yeast) are in kefir. It is full of probiotic goodness.

Kombucha is a fermented sweetened tea with origins in China. The tea ferments for a number of days under something colloquially called a “mushroom” and technically called a SCOBY (symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast). It also can become slightly alcoholic (1.0% to 1.5%) depending on the brewing time.

As I said above, the SCOBY contains a symbiosis of bacteria – Acetobacter (acetic acid bacteria) – and yeast – Brettanomyces bruxellensis, Candida stellata, Schizosaccharomyces pombe, Torulaspora delbruecki, and Zygosaccharomyces bailii.

kombucha brewing

Kombucha sometimes tastes a little vinegary after a spell, and that is due to the presence of the acetic acid, which provides much anti-microbial activity. It also contains butyric acid, gluconic acid, lactic acid, malic acid, oxalic acid, usnic acid, as well as some B-vitamins. It does not contain glucuronic acid, contrary to popular belief and scientific testing.

Look for a future post on fermented vegetables, additional dairy products, and non-dairy drinks as well. The world of fermented food is vast and delicious!

This post is participating in Real Food Wednesday, hosted by Kelly the Kitchen Kop.

Kefir grains photo: (cc) user Phrood on Wikimedia Commons via a Creative Commons license.