Making Cultured Buttermilk, Kefir and Sour Cream
ByWanna know how EASY it is to make cultured buttermilk, kefir and sour cream? Yeah, it takes about 30 seconds of your time. (Don’t tell anyone that though…they think it’s impressive when you make your own.) :)
I buy my buttermilk and sour cream (also known as kreme fresh) starter from Wilderness Family Naturals.
Then…
To Make Kefir:
I begin with just under a half gallon of raw milk in a glass jar. (You can make this with pasturized milk too as far as I know.) I pour the packet of Kefir starter into the milk…shake it up…and put a lid on it. Then, I set the jar in the cabinet above my refrigerator for about 24 hours (in the winter, it takes a little longer in my COLD kitchen!). You’ll know it is done “culturing” when it is thick and has some bubbly looking bubbles all through it. And when you tip your jar over…it kind of…glops. (see how helpful I am?)
**UPDATE** A friend of mine sent me some Kefir Grains, which I now use to make kefir. MUCH less expensive because you use the kefir grain over and over forever. You can find kefir grains here.
To Make Buttermilk:
Follow the same instructions as for the Kefir…only use the Vegetable Culture starter (I don’t know why you use the veggie one…that’s just the culture starter for buttermilk).
To Make Sour Cream (aka kreme fresh):
Use the Vegetable Starter with one pint of cream. Follow the same directions as above.
Now…to make more batches of each of these…
Save about a cup each of kefir or buttermilk (or about a third cup of sour cream) from your initial batch.
Use this remaining kefir, buttermilk or sour cream to shake into more raw milk or cream (1/2 gallon of milk…or 1 pint of cream) to begin a fresh batch. Just put it in, shake it up, and let it sit out for 24 hours or so. (Until you’ve got the glop thing going on.) You can do this up to eight times before you need to begin with a new starter package. (I’ve continued it more than eight times when I’m feeling rebellious. It still works.)
Here’s the tail end of one jar of buttermilk,
ready to be poured into a fresh 1/2 gallon jar of milk.
Here’s a jar of milk with a cup of buttermilk shaken into it…
ready to begin the culturing process.
(Yes, I know it looks like a plain ol’ jar of milk.
You’ll have to humor me and act like you can tell .)
(Nod and say, oh…very nice.)
And here is my milk turning into buttermilk in the cabinet above my fridge. (With my Chrismas dishes.) I’ve been advised that this spot is the best one in my kitchen to culture things because it has a fairly consistent temperature.
Oh, and when I do put my culturing dairy products in this cabinet…I LEAVE THE CABINET DOOR OPEN so that I can see it. It’s a bad idea to forget you have buttermilk or kefir or sour cream culturing in a cabinet. A bad, bad idea.
Now you have really, really healthy kefir for smoothies…and really, really healthy sour cream for your tacos, etc…and really, really healthy buttermilk for drinking or for soaking your grains.
See how easy it is?! :)
And no…we aren’t brave enough to drink the buttermilk straight. It’s a lovely idea…and it shore does smell good…but mostly I use it for soaking/baking.
A more frugal route is using kefir grains for kefir. It is just as easy and you can find free kefir grains online here.
They reproduce themselves too so you should never have to get them again.
I wrote about how to make it yourself here, if any one is interested.
God bless,
Lindsay
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Thank you so much for posting this! I’ve been wanting to try making my own kefir…hopefully I can try it soon! :-)
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That sounds super easy. I will have to give it a try. Do you know how long the buttermilk, kefir, and sour cream keep in the fridge after you’ve made them?
Thanks for the info!
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Where do you get your jars?
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I’m excited about the sour cream. My husband and I eat a lot of it. I would imagine that it’s not very thick made this way? I wonder if it tastes like the Russian variety we enjoyed so much while over seas.
Although I haven’t tried these three things, I have made yogurt using a bit of already made yogurt as a starter. I used my crockpot filled with warm water to hold the jars of yogurt during the incubation time. Yogurt is a lot more touchy than some other things though.
I also made cream cheese two different ways. On one batch I used a tiny bit of rennet, but the cheese became too firm and wasn’t very spreadable. The other way was leaving the raw milk out for three days, carefully covered. Then I strained it through a towel for another day or so until all the whey was out of it. What amazed me was that the cream cheese was sweet and all the sour stayed in the whey! It was the perfect consistancy too. I felt like such the domestic diva! ;)
Thanks for these suggestions and resources. A gallon of milk a week is usually too much for my husband and I, and it would be good to know what to do with the extra.
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Thanks so much for posting this…I’ve been buying my kefir and it’s so expensive! :)
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What other products do you recommend getting from Wilderness Naturals if one doesn’t have access to Azure or another food coop. I Love your blog. Thanks for all the wonderful information!
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We have also started to make our own yogurt. We love being able to make our own dairy products.
Thank you for all that you have taught me over the past year. I have grown so much and I have you to thank.
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Wow! What a wonderful idea! I never knew that could be made at home!
A friend of mine told me that kefir was so healthy for us to eat, but I never found a way to squeeze it into our diets (she did recommend kefir in smoothies, now that my brain gears are working.)
I do wonder what another commenter had pondered, and that is how thick the sour cream gets.
You have a lovely blog, by the way! I loved your ideas on homeschooling!
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What exactly is kefir? My mother called and asked me this yesterday…. I have never heard of it… I have also been wanting to ask you a question about rapadora.. do you exchange it in equal amounts for recipes that call for white sugar… Thanks Erika
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I have to repeat the question asked in another comment: Where DO you get your lovely jars (I love jars!)
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Wow thank you, i’m learning from your website. Well there is other website that i very recommend, check it out:
http://www.howtomakekefir.com
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You can get some eally pretty, inexpensive jars at Walmart and Garden Ridge. If there is no Garden Ridge near you, any home furnishing specialty store should have an imaginitive collection of glass jars.
And now, a question. What happens if I put the kefir grains into buttermilk? What about a combination of milk and buttermilk ? Since I started playing with the grains, my kitchen has turned into more of a lab. In honor of Frank Zappa, we call it the Utility Muffin Research Kitchen. I feel like a kid again, with kefir science projects everywhere.
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I just found this thread about Kefir. I made my first batch day before yesterday (only a Qt.) and I’m already culturing my second! I have been making smoothies with fresh berries – strawberry and/or blueberry and since I’m on a no sugar diet, I add a bit of stevia to slightly sweeten! They are awesome.
I have a question about the many uses of kefir. Basically, it seems that you could use it in any fashion you would buttermilk. Is that reasonable?
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started kefir after a friend gave me some to try. fell in love with it ever since. : )
glad to see kefir is gaining popularity now a days. i’ve found this site to have lots of recipes and info about kefir and kefir grains, yogurt too. http://www.yourkefirsource.com
just might want to check it out!
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Can you start your own batch of buttermilk using a cup of store bought buttermilk?
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Laura Reply:
January 12th, 2010 at 5:09 pm
Yes, I believe you can. It’s worth a try anyway!
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About how long do you think these things are good for (in the fridge, of course). I want to have these on hand for soaking grains, making cheese, mixing in smoothies or whatever, but I don’ want to “waste” my milk by doing something that will cause my milk to go bad while I am not using it. Any general rule of thumb (since we aren’t dealing with expiration dates)? Thank you!
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Laura Reply:
March 31st, 2010 at 6:56 am
I’ve had mine in the fridge as long as a month before and it’s done just fine!
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Andrea Reply:
March 31st, 2010 at 10:59 am
Thanks so much! I think I’ll make some Kefir today!
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I am curious about the keep time as well. We usually drink our raw milk within 2 days of getting it, but our conventional buttermilk sits in our fridge a bit longer than that. Also, what is the difference between the two kefir starters as one seems to be regular and the other talks about being for drinking…is it just a one time use?
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Laura Reply:
March 31st, 2010 at 6:58 am
I’ve had mine in the fridge as long as a month before and it’s done just fine!
As far as kefir goes, I use it for both soaking and drinking.
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Wow, kefir is so easy. I really may try this.
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I’ve always made my buttermilk by pouring a bit of cultured buttermilk into my mason jar and filling the rest of the jar with milk and allowing it to sit out for 24 hours. I’ve never used a vege culture starter. Do you know if what I’ve been doing is not really buttermilk? As soon as my jar is mostly empty, I just add more milk and set it out again (usually at least once a week). It thickens up and seems to have that buttermilk smell/taste. Just curious.
I’ve also just ordered some kefir starter cultures so I can start making my own kefir. Yeah!
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Laura Reply:
April 29th, 2010 at 9:58 am
No, that’s just FINE what you’ve been doing. That’s what I do too, once I’ve used the culture starter to make the first batch!
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Hmmm, I would like to try this!
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