Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Man oh man, where do I start? Um... so a crappy gut microbiome is truly awful and you can terrify yourself and read up on all manner of scary factoids about it. One major downside is coming down with a CDiff infection which is precisely what I did recently when I knew pretty much nothing about gut health. All I kept seeing was that 20% of people who succumb to it are destined to suffer over and over and OVER and just can't seem to get rid of it. Even the lucky 80% are often stuck coming down with it again within days to weeks of completing the scary heavy duty antibiotics needed to kill it, and having to go through another round. I won't go into the details, just know that it's awful. So while I was on the medication and scaring myself with Dr. Internet, I came across several articles and personal accounts talking about drinking Kefir inbetween antibiotic pills (mine was 1 pill every six hours, so I drank it 3 hours after each pill, thus leaving another 3 hours before the next one), and then especially drinking it once the antibiotics were done. I was buying a store-bought plain version and downing a quart per day (no, I'm not a doctor and I'm not telling anyone to do the same thing, just saying what I personally did) - 8 oz every 6 hours. Once I was done with the antibiotics, I was still consuming a quart daily - 8 oz 4 times a day. I'm not really a fan of yogurt at all, and the first cup of store bought stuff I drank I was making ridiculous gaggy faces and saying "Blech!" but a funny thing happened. I think my body instantly recognized that I needed the good stuff in kefir because even though I never liked the taste, I DREAMED about drinking my next cup. Even right after I drank one down, I was like "Man, I can't wait to have the next one!" and THAT is saying something because you have absolutely zero appetite when you have CDiff. I was even gagging on plain bone broth or water. So then I started gagging on the price tag of $3-4 a bottle which is a quart size. That was $3-4 a day! I looked up making my own Kefir and was surprised to read that a lot of store brands use thickeners and such (like cellulose or pectin), PLUS apparently they need to pasteurize the product for shelf life. I was like "Well how much good bacteria survives pasteurizing??" A lot of browsing later led me to here, and I ended up purchasing a Tbsp of grains. I had never made kefir before, but the paper that came with the grains had a link to the e-book and that was very informative in getting started! It took a few days for my grains to wake up and make thick creamy stuff, so I tossed the first few batches until I woke up one morning to something thicker where I could see slight separation at the top and bottom. We keep our AC set to 68 most of the time here and I did not need to warm up my kefir bottles sitting on my granite counter in the kitchen. I have a digital temperature gun and the bottles almost always read around 71.5 degrees F. In fact, these little guys are so active and robust that I wake up and strain the kefir at 8am, and fill the new mason quart jars with the strained grains (1 tbsp in each jar) and fresh milk (I fill the milk up to right where the quart bell jar begins to curve in toward the cap) and then put them in the fridge until I take them out and put them on the counter at 1pm. I do this every day, and it results in the perfect creamy kefir at 8am for me every morning. The grains multiplied like crazy and I've thrown out some at least 3 times and it's only been slightly over 3 weeks. When I strain the kefir in the morning, I get 3 regular mason jars filled to the brim with kefir. The key to getting it nice and creamy is pouring the quart fermenting jar contents into a bowl through a nylon strainer (bought a nice cheap one on amazon) and then making sure you use your utensil (I just use a plastic spoon) to scrape that amazing cream off of the bottom of the strainer into the bowl. Tap the strainer a few times onto the top of the bowl, scrape again. A lot of times I'll use my plastic spoon to sort of spread the grains around in the strainer and you'll actually see them get cleaner and more defined as the cream goes through the strainer and the grains stay behind. Then I do a final cream scrape off the bottom of the strainer into the bowl, and scoop and newly cleaned grains into 2 new (meaning freshly washed) mason quart jars and fill with milk. I cover them each with a coffee filter (not the cone kind, a regular old fashioned one. They're super cheap), and then screw the metal ring lid on (I threw out the metal flat disk part of the lids) over the filter. It ends up looking like some kind of copacabana drink container. I give the bowl of strained kefir a stir and then pour it (my bowl has a slight spout) into little clean mason jars and cap them and put them in the fridge. They are for drinking the next day after a 24 hour fridge second ferment. You can drink it right away but they just get SO creamy and wonderful the next day! So every day I put the new ones in the fridge behind the 3 I made yesterday which are ready for me to drink today. I hope that makes sense the way I've written it! I would compare the flavor of the fresh kefir vs store bought as "punchier". It's a bit tangier and... well just... punchier. I tried putting zest or fruit in the strained kefir as it did it's second ferment but I really needed to get it into something that my family would also drink. That's when I read about making smoothies with it. Oh my gosh how did I NOT KNOW about this!!?? It's SO GOOD! You don't taste any tang or punch with fruit and flavor blended in especially if you're adding frozen stuff to make it super cold or frosty. Here are our favorites: 8 oz kefir from the fridge 1 frozen banana (bananas are a prebiotic!) Dash of cinnamon (or pumpkin pie spice) Splash of honey to your liking. Also you can use real maple syrup instead to change it up. Blend and enjoy. (Note: I also add a handful of frozen kale or spinach, it doesn't affect the taste and adds nutrition). Alternatively you can add a spoonful of almonds (almonds are a prebiotic too!) if you have a beefy blender. We use a Vitamix. Favorite of my kid's and mine: 16 oz Kefir 1 room temp banana 1 1/2 cup frozen fruit (we buy this frozen brand that has mango, pineapple, coconut and dragon fruit) Handful of frozen kale or spinach Honey to taste Blend. We've made this for several friends now and everyone has loved it! My personal favorite: 8 oz Kefir 1 Frozen Banana Cut a tangerine in half and squeeze the juice into the blender Handful of Frozen spinach or kale Honey to taste You can also add vanilla to give it an orange julius feel Blend I'm sure you can see where I'm going with all of this. Use your imagination. We use banana with all of them because it's a fantastic prebiotic food. I've been experimenting with some of the other "top prebiotic foods" like oatmeal and apples but I wasn't a fan of that combo. Flavor was fine but the consistency was a little wonky. I'll play around with it. Throwing cocoa and almonds in was pretty darn good with a frozen banana! I have read several places that fresh kefir is a lot more potent than store bought (for the reasons I mentioned about 9 pages ago... sorry I'm writing so much!) so I drink 16 -20 oz a day now instead of 32. Basically a banana/kale/tangerine shake for breakfast (this stuff makes a great meal replacement that actually makes me full and satisfied for hours) and then the banana/frozen tropical fruit/spinach one after dinner as a dessert with my kid. My husband likes the frozen banana&cinnamon one. They are both drinking kefir every day for nearly 3 weeks. It was a small amount at first as my kefir grains grew but within a week and a half we were all up to a full cup of kefir per smoothie. (And I have 2 because I'm the one that clearly had an F Minus in the gut department. I have some catching up to do!) Seriously I have to throw away grains every couple of days! I wasn't doing that at first and the kefir was separating too fast. As long as I keep it to one good sized tbsp per quart jar of milk it comes out perfectly. Like I said, I strain at 8am, fill fresh jars with milk and grains and then put them in the fridge. I take them out at 1pm and let them sit until 8am the next day. Doesn't mean that'll be your schedule - it could be totally different at your house with your milk, but just know that I've been doing this and the couple hours in the fridge doesn't bother them at all in mine. So if you're struggling to get a daily schedule without waking up to total whey/curd separation (happened to me once!) you can totally try the fridge vaycay trick! If I know i'm sleeping in the next day or unable to strain first thing in the morning then I just leave them in the fridge longer and take them out at, say, 3 or 4pm instead of 1pm. I'm just saying the timing is flexible and it's so easy to do this! I haven't felt this great in years and once I got the hang of what I was doing, making the kefir is super easy. Takes me a few minutes in the morning to strain it and start fresh batches and that's really it. I wash everything in the dishwasher (although I did invest in a cheap bottle brush to get the inside of the mason jars of any hardy residue)