Cultures for Health Milk Kefir Grains | DIY Frothy Dairy Non-GMO Probiotic Drink for Stronger Gut Health | Limitless Heirloom Style Starter | Easy to Flavor or Add to Recipes | Bulgaros De Leche

This was shipped to me right away. This is the first time I have ever tried making kefir, and this new hobby is working out very nicely for me with these kefir grains. They arrive dried, and it takes a week or so to wake them up. You start with a small batch and gradually increase the batch volume until you get up to a quart. I'm about halfway there, working on my fifth batch now, and it tastes a little bit better every time. Even the first one-cup batch was drinkable. The taste of homemade kefir is more interesting that the store-bought stuff, and it's also said to be even better for your health with a much greater number of probiotic strains.

Followed directions in package exactly as described, set on counter in 72 degree room, absolutely no results in first 12 hours , let set another 12 hours, still no results except for a sour milk smell like milk that has gone bad in fridge , which is nothing like the kefir I had from organic foot store . Completely disappointed in this product

Okay. I like kefir. I drink a quart a week. In the store the brand I like (goat's milk kefir) is outrageously expensive. I have been making my own yogurt with great success, so it stands to reason that I could, nay - I SHOULD - start making my own kefir. After all, it's just like yogurt making, right? No, she learned, it is not. Don't get me wrong. Everything has been going great as far as convincing the kefir grains to come out of their dehydrated state. I started them in one cup of milk and after about 24 hours with no change I gave them another cup of milk. That's when things started to ramp up. That cup of milk was 'changed' within another 12 hours. So, like the instructions said I strained out the grains (required me to fish around in the goopy stuff that would not strain) and then put the now more robust grains into a cup and a half of milk. This time it took less than 12 hours for the whole thing to go thick. So now we are up to two cups. Probably this will be just a few hours before the baby grains need more fresh milk. It will not be long before it is up to 4 cups. Let me just let that sink in like it finally sank in for me. 4 cups of milk per day or possibly given my hungry, hungry grains maybe more? I am not even through the process and I had to look up on the website how to slow it the f- down. Whoa Nellie - I don't drink FOUR cups of kefir a day - every day... EVERY DAY! It is no longer a healthy drink that I am saving money on by making myself. Now I am the proud Momma of a voracious culture that needs me to look after it. The instructions say you should not try to slow it down for the first 3 - 4 weeks or else you might hurt the grains. Hurt them. Hurt their little grainy feelings. Dear Lord what have I gotten myself into? This is not a drink - this is a commitment. This is not a money saving little thing - this is something I am going to have to feed - I am now working to support my kefir so it can have its 4 cups of high quality milk a day. I have this unwelcome daydream where I will I have to stand on a street corner and beg for money to afford this pet - plus convince those driving by to help me drink all this kefir. Okay. Be warned. You are going to be very successful and you are going to be making a lot of kefir. Lots every day. If you want you can dry out some of your grains and store them and then figure out how many grains you use to make the amount you will actually use. The website talks all about this. It will be okay, but seriously - maybe don't activate all the grains you get - in fact use less than half if you are looking to have any kind of normal life. But hey - who doesn't want cute little kefir grains as a pet? Now I just have to come up with some names for them all. Good luck.

I have a had great luck with this product. The seller has been super helpful and I had achieved success!!! (It can a day for him to reply...but like most of us...we cant be on the computer or phone all day) I started by healing my grains as instructed. I put them in fresh room temp milk every 12 hours (a cup of milk, I used organic milk from the grocery store) in a warm dark place. I removed them from the milk with a little plastic strainer from the dollar store. Rinsed them off with filtered water. It takes a few days for the grains to increase. Somedays I had what appeared to be new ones and other days they just doubled in size. I found that they can be stuck in a thick milk/yogurt type goo at the bottom of the jar. I just scooped that out into the strainer and rinsed off gently. After 6 days ( I did 6, 4 would have been enough), I strained off the milk and used the kefir (I started with about a cup and a half of milk). I let mine sit for 8 hours. It is a bit thicker than milk, not much thicker though. Mine has very little smell (warm milk/buttermilk smell) when I strained it. After I chilled it, it had a sour milk smell. This is normal. I can not drink it straight. I don't like the flavor. I put about an 1/8 of a cup in a fruit smoothie every day. The flavor does not come through. That amount of kefir last me several days (for two people) . I store my grains in a jar ,in a cup of milk, in the fridge (a sealed jar). If it sits for a week, I add a splash of fresh milk. When I go to use them, I strain and rinse them, then just put the back in room temp milk and start again. I now have about a tablespoon and a half of grains. When I have 2 tablespoons, I will divide in two and only use half and store other half in the fridge. I will give these away or just rotate using my two portions to keep all of them alive and fed. I also want to make coconut milk kefir. The seller advised that I grow them to the point of the two portions and use one for the coconut. Apparently coconut milk does not have all the components that regular milk has and the grains can not feed as well in coconut milk. So I will use my additional portion just in case they don't do well in the coconut milk. I have tried to write about the things that were not entirely clear to me in the instructions. Oh...btw...the grains don't look like much when you get them. Just empty out packet contents into milk and let it go. It will take a day or two for them to look like tiny pieces of cauliflower. No rinsing with tap water. Bottled water,I wouldn't trust for this. I used R/O filter but distilled or brita type filter would do. Be patient and follow the instructions. The seller is soooo helpful. I had may a good chat via email with him ( I think it was a "him"). First couple of days using the kefir. My digestion was a bit "rumbly" but very much improved. Rumbling has stopped. I seem to be less tolerant of fried foods. This is how my system was when I was younger. No complaints from me on that. I am glad to have a deterrent from my unhealthy eating habits. I have a dairy tolerance issue and the one day I did not have my smoothie, Ice cream upset my stomach. If I have my smoothie,it seems that my dairy intolerance is in check. I love that the kefir shows its promise so quickly. I hope that you give this a try... I have been very pleased. Good luck Jax

I bought these grains (Cultures for Health - CFH) during the second week of August 2016. The extremely small amount of grains you get is a joke. I had several issues getting good kefir, including poor texture and taste, and lack of growth in the grains. I made several adjustments, including different amounts of milk and different culturing times, and still had difficulty. I ended up getting another order of grains during the first week of September 2016, and after activating them, I combined both sets of grains. I have continued culturing through early October, again making several adjustments (including adjusting ambient temperature) to try to get a good batch of kefir. The grains have made very minimal growth and could barely produce 2 cups of okay kefir, still lacking in texture. I did get a few decent batches of kefir over the course of almost 2 months, but it seemed to be by chance and did not appear to be directly related to anything differently I did, because I could not reproduce the same kefir while keeping all the other factors the same. I was hopeful and really gave these grains a chance, but after almost 2 whole months of investing a lot of time and effort, I only have 1 TEASPOON of grains (a heaping teaspoon, and that is with 2 orders of grains). I then bought from a competitor, and am amazed at the superior quality of their grains. The taste and texture is excellent and significantly better than CFH—you can't even compare the two. What I achieved after about 1 week with the competitor's grains, I could not achieve after 2 months with CFH grains. The competitor's grains grew from 2 TBS (what I ordered) to 3/4 cup in ~ 2 weeks (14 batches). Now that is what I call healthy, active grains. Maybe others are having a good experience with these (CFH) grains, and if they are, good for them. But I wonder if people who gave 5 stars for CFH actually know how amazing kefir can be. Don't get me wrong, CFH grains do turn the milk into kefir, but the overall quality is poor and far inferior to at least one competitor that I tried. I did contact CFH with questions and they were prompt and helpful, and they did send me a free order when I had issues. But I am still dissatisfied with the poor quality of their product. The pictures attached show the amount I grew with TWO orders of grains after ~2 months of culturing. (one order was cultured for less than 2 months as it arrived later).

I am hoping I got a dud batch as mine will not ferment after 5 days. I am experienced making yogurt, cheese, sourdough and fermented veg so I am not new to this. I have a note in to their customer service and I will update this if they help by replacing mine with a fresher batch. Update: it took a full 8 days to *begin* waking up- a little thickness to it. This is going to be a slow process I am hesitant to give a 5 star review as I still think that it should be a stronger culture, as in maybe they need to send more culture or at the very least indicate in their welcome note it does not actually always start in a few days as it seems to indicate. As showed in the picture it seems to indicate you’ll have 4 cups by the 7th batch. Not with the culture I recieved. In any respect, alittle educational booklet with the starter would have been appreciated as it is not cheap and I almost gave up. Also DO NOT Start with 1 cup of milk as they say, I’d recommend 1/3 to maybe 1/2 cup as you waste alot waiting for it to wake up, and 8 cups of milk to wait for it to wake is costly. I am happy to have my keifer culture finally starting, I think maybe it could’ve gone smoother as the culture was costly and I actually really stressed I had wasted money that I can’t afford to waste. This is a solid company but I’d hope for a stronger culture.

It’s been 5 months since i bought the kefir grains. I followed the directions and in 24 hours i got my first 32 oz jar of milk kefir. Made with cow’s whole milk the result was a creamy, tart and tasty beneficial drink. In the beginning to make more I would carefully use a screen filter to filter out the grains. Nowadays, I just wait until the jar gets down to its last 20% and I just add more whole milk and it works perfectly. I wouldn’t recommend doing this until the milk kefir grains is very abundant and the fermentation process becomes faster. I live in Hawaii so when I leave it out at room temperature, it only takes 12 hours to be fermented to the point that I like. I ferment it until I start to see a little bit of the whey protein separation then I put it in the refrigerator. From there, it continues to separate but is slowed down dramatically, and before it can separate extremely, I would have finished the jar and added new milk.. when I take it out of the fridge I make sure to shake the jar to remix the whey protein into it before I drink it and the result is a nice thick creamy milk kefir. I also started to experiment with it.. when I make dishes that uses yogurt as a binder with chicken for example, I replace it with some kefir and the result is great. I also used an instant pot yogurt setting to make kefir yogurt instead of greek yogurt which i would usually do and that was also successful. I would recommend this to everyone. Most importantly it helped me to have consistent healthy digestion, limiting stomaches and other negative digestive Issues.

This was my first time attempting Kefir. As a matter of fact, I never even had Kefir, so I didn't even know what to expect. I went through the 7-day get started process. the first couple of day, I was very disappointed. The taste was horrible. But I figured I'd let it run it's course. By day #5, I was shock at what I saw. The Kefir was as thick as Yogurt and the taste changed dramatically for the better. By day seven I had a very think creamy kefir that I needed a spoon to eat. I added a dash of salt, a teaspoon of honey to a bowl of it, and boy did I enjoy it. The one mistake I made was I left the grains in the kefir for another 24 hours after enjoying that bowl. The next night it suddenly became very sour. When I searched Ai, it said that I should have strained out the grains the night before if I enjoyed the taste then. However, Ai also said that when sour, it is more probiotic. I am still enjoying it. The next batch is already on the counter getting ready for when this one is done. One thing of note about these grains. According to Ai, the fact that I have a think kefir is a sign they were very healthy grains! I highly recommend, not to mention the fact that it is great for gut health. Tonight, not only did I add salt and honey, I also added Hemp hearts, and ground flax seed! A nutrient‑dense probiotic power shake! In the photo, the one on the left is the new batch just beginning. The one on the right is done and going into the refrig!

These grains are excellent. I am a newbie at making kefir but following the instructions and looking at how-to videos on the Cultures For Health website was a great help. I have learnt from other websites that organic milk does not work because it is heated to a very high temperature and therefore is UHT milk. I used grass fed whole milk and I am making delicious kefir. Some people also say to use a lid, but I found that using a lid makes the kefir runny, whereas using a cloth with a rubber band makes the kefir thick and creamy. So overall I am very happy with this product and would recommend it. Also I would recommend to follow their instructions and checkout their YouTube videos if you are new to making kefir.

Great product, clear instructions, a fair price, patience is needed, I'm five batches in, all excl. batch #1 are tasty and healthy! Admittedly the grains haven't grown massively (I'm using full fat milk from Spinnies but it's homogenized and pasteurised, so still workable but not the best), 24hrs is enough (in our hot heat) now they're activated. All in all, after lots of research, this was the best option on paper. And it's proving to be the same in reality!

Everyone gather around, I have an incredible story to tell you. I ordered these grains aug 31. It arrived at the post office a few days later. Because of a mix up at the post office, i didn't receive them and forgot all about it. I messaged the seller when I finally remembered last week, and they provided me the shipping details. So I go over to the cheeky post office last Saturday and get it cleared up but I'm convinced these little buggers are already dead. You would to right? So i go home and slip em into a jar of milk. 24 hours later and I have a slightly soured milk... it's a sign. So that evening I change the milk out for some fresh milk.... i drank that first batch, it was still yummy! BAM next day, solid curdled milk!. Granted my kitchen was a little extra warm, but HOLY COW BAT MAN. They're alive and kicking like a donkey. Not only, after 6 weeks of being held up at the post office, did they survive! They're so potent and strong! I made another batch yesterday afternoon and strained it this morning. By the time i got to work it continued fermenting with a couple very soft lumps, but it was so delish! made 4 cupfuls and it was a hit. Use whole milk <3 so yummy! It's great to finally have something I can ferment and enjoy quickly (im itching to open my Kvass and Saurkraut at week 4, next week) I also slipped some in my kids milk, and the Whey i got from the first batch went into her juice LOL she didn't notice a thing, #sneakymom Thanks again Lifetime Kefir for your quick response, and amazing grains!

Waste of money, i have been putting then in milk as instructed for almost 4 days and the milk never turn thick. Not recommended at all

For me this was just a waste of money (34$), which I think is way too expensive. This should cost no more than 20$, like the water kefir, waste of organic milk and time. I followed all the directions up to 6 days and the grains never grew in size and the milk never thickened, so I was very frustrated of wasting expensive milk and stopped everything. I watched a lot of youtube videos and it looked very simple, "When it works". For me it did not. So what am I suppose to do, take a chance again and buy it again (34$) plus wasting milk again. Well that's not going to happen. Too bad because I was really looking forward to this, since I consume Kefir regularly. This should have been so easy for me since I bake my own sourdough bread with no problems and it is a much more complex process. Buyer beware, it might work and it might not work depending on the grains you get. For what it costs we should get 2 packs so if one doesn't work you have a second chance. Frank