Had these grains for about eight months and they were reliable at roughly 24 hours to a thick tangy kefir. Over the past fortnight the grains have got stringy and slippery to handle, and the milk now splits into curds and yellow whey in five or six hours. Same whole milk, same jar, kitchen is warmer now, maybe 25C. Ratio is a tablespoon of grains to 500ml. Are these grains dying or overworked?
If you want the slime gone faster, rest the grains in fresh milk in the fridge for a few days. Cold slows everything, the ropey strains lose their advantage, and they come back normal. I would not rinse them in water, and definitely not tap water.
The no-rinsing rule saved my grains. I rinsed once, out of tidiness, and it took three weeks for them to recover.
Also check whether your milk changed. UHT and some ultra-pasteurised brands ferment very differently and my grains went stringy the month my shop quietly switched supplier.
Split kefir is still perfectly good, by the way. Shake it, or strain the whey off and use it as a starter for the next batch of vegetables.
@gongfu_greta · 8mo ago · 3 replies
Overworked, not dying. Two things happened at once: your grain mass has grown while your milk volume stayed the same, and the kitchen went up several degrees. Both push the ferment faster, and rapid over-fermentation is what splits it early. Either drop to a teaspoon of grains per 500ml, or keep the grains and go to a litre and a half of milk. The sliminess usually comes with heat and a very active culture, and it clears once the ferment slows down.
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@duckweed_dev · 8mo ago
They roughly double every few weeks when happy. Everyone ends up either giving them away or drinking a lot more kefir than they planned.
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@iris_tanaka · 8mo ago
Went to 1.2 litres per tablespoon and it took 14 hours and came out smooth. Did not occur to me that they had simply multiplied.
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