Can I use dairy kefir grains for nut milk?

[jkhdsf]

I don't do well with milk so I am wondering if I can use the kefir grains from a friends milk kefir and toss it into my coconut, nut, or rice milk and proceed just the same way.

Or are there different strains of bacteria that are better suited specifically to coconut or rice or oats or almonds, etc?

[Lala]

Hey there,

You should be able to make something tasty and fermented out of nut milk, however the grains need milk proteins to grow, and these won't be present in non-animal milk.
In between nut milk batches, you will need to drop the grains into cow or goat milk to feed them, or eventually they'll starve and die.

Are you intolerant of cow's milk only, or all animal milk? I'm just trying my grains in goat's milk at the moment, so hopefully that will come out well. You could use buffalo milk, sheep or goat as an alternative which would still feed the grains.

1 more thing - if you're going to experiment with kefir grains, be sure to save some in regular milk or in the freezer with a little milk powder, just in case it all goes wrong and you lose your batch!

Happy kefiring,
Laura

[deuxetoiles]

Hi There,

I have tried using nut milks for culturing with very little success. I experimented a lot, especially with replacing their food source (milk sugars) with other pre-biotics (tapioca, barley malt, etc.) and found it didn't really work, or didn't taste very good.

However, do not despair! Kefir grains love coconut. Coconut milk is a great environment for culturing using kefir grains. I tried both dairy grains and sugar grains and they both worked, and yielded slightly different flavors.

Try it yourself. Get pure coco milk or cream or water, without added sugar. Ferment as usual, and watch the process closely; the fermentation happens fast!

Good luck!

- Amy

[jkhdsf]

Nice! Thanks Amy. So I can use coconut water or coconut milk and get good results with both?

Do you have any guesses on what is feeding the bacteria here? What would be present I wonder - in coconut - that is lacking in nut & grain milks?