My quest for the best probiotics to help heal my freakin’ face is well documented on this blog (here and here), but turns out the probiotic holy grail is probably kefir.
Made-at-home, DIY kefir. Even if you’re a faux celeb, you gotta make it so it’s nothing but plain ol’ fermented milk.
There are better tutorials of how and why here and all over pinterest. But let me tell you, it’s way easier than ever imagined.
Basic, not-a-recipe instructions:
1. Pour milk over “grains” that are not grains in a glass jar
(1b. raw milk is best yum; pasteurized is fine but ultra-pasteurized is kinda not because they already pretty much blasted all the bacteria, ya feel me?)
2. Leave jar in cabinet for 12-24 (or 36 whoops?) hours
(2b. it’s drinkable no matter what, but too sour for most people if the whey water has started to separate from the kefir)
3. Strain with a fine steel strainer (not plastic) and wooden spoon (not plastic) (because we’re dirty hippies now duh)
(3b. the mason-jar-wide size sieve is very hard to find, here it is on amazon for $5.36)
4. Repeat until you’re tired of kefir. Then you can “sleep” the grains in the refrigerator. Or dehydrate them but that seems like a lot of work.
OPTIONS
5. You can double-ferment the strained kefir. In summer in OC, this would only take a couple hours, if you leave it longer see 2b. but best practice is just a few hours. It will get thicker and milder, somehow. Idk, fermented food is weird.
6. Flavors! You can put stuff in your kefir and give it flavor. Vanilla, cinnamon, fruits. Honey! Peanut butter even. I also like chia seeds and coconut flakes if I want it to be breakfast-y and eaten with a spoon as opposed to drinking it.
BUT HONESTLY, mostly it’s worth making because
there’s a noticeable difference in my face on the kefir.
NEED GRAINS?
These things multiply like crazy—I promise, if anyone you know makes kefir, they’re looking to get rid of their excess kefir grains. Get ’em from a friend (like me!) and don’t spend big money on kits or anything from a store.