if you make kefir...
 

...what do you use to strain out your grains? I'm finding my kefir too thick for my mesh strainer, and I sort of have to smah it through, which thins it and defeats the purpose.

Re: if you make kefir...
 

Is this Milk Kefir?

If so, you want your colonies to grow thick and clump together and get big.

One thing I can recommend is to use more milk and check it in 12 hours or 24 hours - and see if that's the consistency you're going for.

I use a plastic strainer and drain what I can, then mix it around a little to get a little more out (Not pushing it, just moving it some) and leaving enough to start the next batch with the same culture.

Right now we have ours resting in the fridge, but during summer I can easily do about a gallon of milk in a week without trying hard.

Re: if you make kefir...
 

I used a colander with slats rather than holes. Eventually my grains got chunky enough that I could use one with with big holes even.


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Re: if you make kefir...
 

For the last year or so I've had my kefir grains in a silicone tea infuser. It was awesome because no straining required, just move the infuser to a new jar of milk. But I didn't like that the grains didn't have room to grow, so I just recently switched them to a muslin bag. I just drop the bag into the jar and then when it's done, fish the bag out and drop it in a new jar of milk. Things have to be easy, or I get lazy and don't bother to keep up with them :)

Re: if you make kefir...
 

Okay, thank you. I was considering this (the bag idea) but wasn't sure if I could do that.

I'm still activating my grains, but boy, it's much more of a pain than the water kefir (which I love; the milk one is for dh and ds2).

Re: if you make kefir...
 

I used a slotted spoon or even clean fingers. Sometimes I would have to pour it slowly into another container in order to find them.

---------- Post added at 11:53 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:52 AM ----------

ETA handling your cultures is supposed to be very good for them (and you).

Re: if you make kefir...
 

I don't know if you can get milk sugar there at a HFS, but if you can, and you're looking for your grains to grow and get bigger, adding a tsp per jar that you're doing will help them multiply. I made mine really happy doing that a year or so ago and we ended up splitting and sharing our grains with family. :)

Re: if you make kefir...
 

Neat! I didn't know you could do this. I would have thought the grain needed to be loose in the milk to "touch" it all.


Also didn't realize the grains like to be touched.

Good info. I have heen making kefir for 5 years or more, always used a plastic strainer that fits on top of a Mason jar.