Kefir emergency

June 5, 2018 5:28 AM

The temperature in my kitchen went up drastically when I was at work yesterday and when I came home, my first stage curds were completely tangled with the grains and I can't separate them.

Normally the the stage curds dissolve pretty easily into the whey, but I think they have curdled. The best I can do right now is pour tons of water then pick out the milk clumps by hand.

Any advice for speeding this up? Do another batch immediately?

Pls halp

posted by tedious to Food & Drink (8 answers total)

You can try to pick out the good stuff by hand, but I’d suggest sealing it all in a jar and shaking vigorously, then trying to strain as normal, as also recommended by a kefir seller.

I would use a bit more milk for the next batch, and if that gets too big, start drying grains and saving them as backups for if/when this happens again, the site linked above has instructions on that too.
posted by SaltySalticid at 5:42 AM on June 5, 2018

Yep, shaking the jar has worked for me.
posted by toastedcheese at 7:21 AM on June 5, 2018

Pour into a sieve. Shake. Keep shaking. Don't pour on water.
posted by Leon at 7:26 AM on June 5, 2018

Pour into a sieve and run water through it until the grains are the only thing left. You can stir and squish the contents of the sieve with a spoon or your hands while you do this. The grains are very robust. Even if you completely split one into two they survive. And they definitely survive rinsing with water. I used to do this all the time when I made kefir regularly.
posted by lollusc at 9:21 AM on June 5, 2018

I'd use distilled water if you're going to rinse them.
posted by onecircleaday at 4:42 PM on June 5, 2018

Response by poster: I really wish all this advice had worked, but nothing worked. My milk has turned into the texture of tonsil stones, and is not dissolving. Shaking does nothing, and straining does nothing. I think I might have to dry them.

Here is a picture.
posted by tedious at 2:01 AM on June 12, 2018

Huh. I've never seen curds form like that (so white) and I've left the damn stuff on the side for weeks to see what would happen. Were they water kefir grains?
posted by Leon at 7:27 AM on June 14, 2018

Response by poster: No, they were raised on goat milk, then i kept them in homogenized conventional milk for about 4 years.
posted by tedious at 3:33 PM on June 14, 2018