Kefir or Yogurt

Yogurt, Kefir, Clabbered Milk, Cheese, Whey, and more!

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Kefir or Yogurt

Postby JimmieC on Sun Dec 13, 2020 12:19 am

I'm totally new to making yogurt/kefir and have a newbie question. I purchased a bottle of Lifeway blueberry flavored kefir and dumped about 1/3 cup into a quart of whole milk and then put in a Bear yogurt maker for 20 hrs and then into fridge overnight. What I made had the consistency of heavy cream, tart but with a little honey was quite good. My question is - did I make yogurt or kefir?
Thanks,
Jim
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Re: Kefir or Yogurt

Postby Christopher Weeks on Mon Dec 14, 2020 9:10 am

My answer is that the distinction between the two is somewhat artificial or arbitrary and what you did isn't exactly either one. There's overlap in the set of microbes responsible for the two treatments, though the pool of microbes is larger in milk kefir than in what most people mean by yogurt. Also, as far as I know, kefir is made at room temp and slowed in the fridge.

If you really *had* to pigeonhole what you did, the safest from a communications-with-other-fermenter-people, is you made a "bad" yogurt. But I'll be interested to see if anyone else here has a different stance.
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Re: Kefir or Yogurt

Postby JimmieC on Tue Dec 15, 2020 4:23 pm

Hi Christopher,
Thank for responding to my "mystery" creation. I purchased some freeze dried kefir starter and plan on making some genuine "good" kefir. Although, my mystery yogurt with honey over oats and blueberries ain't too "bad".
Jim
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Re: Kefir or Yogurt

Postby alisoncc on Sat Jul 17, 2021 7:43 am

JimmieC wrote:I purchased some freeze dried kefir starter and plan on making some genuine "good" kefir.
Jim

Sorry Sir, but freeze dried starter is NOT genuine good Kefir. To make the real thing you need milk grains. Which are a symbiotic culture of bacteria, yeasts, etc.
Rev Mother Bene Gesserit.

Sent from my PDP11/05 running RSX-11D via an ASR33 (TTY)
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Re: Kefir or Yogurt

Postby Paulzie67 on Sat Oct 07, 2023 6:02 pm

Dr. William Davis, in one of his books, Describes how to many Several different High Colony Forming Units (CFU) Probiotic Fermented Dairy products. To Technically be called "Yogurt", they (according to some Gov. agency) need to contain L. bulgaricus and S. thermophilus and often has a couple others thrown in. Because of this, some call Other fermented Dairy products used for Probiotic purposes, Progurt or Nogurt or some other interesting combination.
Regular yogurt has been cultured for a VERY Long time (because of our use of dairy for far longer than refrigeration was available) and L. bulgaricus and S. thermophilus have been 2 that some how, seem to live in symbiosis together. But Commercially cultured "yogurts", are supposedly only cultured 4 - 8 hours and don't have as high a CFU as one described by Dr. Davis.
He Suggests, to replace missing Gut Microbiota, Culturing for 36 hours with the addition of Inulin, as food for the bacteria, during the extra time, using a few ProBiotic Capsules or tablets as an initial starter. Best to use pills with 1 bacterial strain so one doesn't eventually overtake the other as not all will live in symbiosis.
Kefir, (Lifeway brand specifically) is one of the Nogurts he suggests and Culturing for an extended time with added food (inulin) for the bacteria to consume after the consumption of the lactose and other things, do produce something akin to yogurt.
I just made some with my Home made kefir and it was pretty gross... fizzy and very tart, tasting more like sour milk than kefir ;-)
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