Culturing kefir substitute from sourdough

For a while I tried to keep kefir, and was enamored with it--I liked the idea of the health benefits, but it also tasted amazing. But after some busy periods where the grains ended up neglected, and then the final defeat when the jar that held the kefir grains at the bottom was mistaken for an empty, dirty bottle...and from that point there was no recovering the culture. But a few days ago, I decided to experiment, adding a small amount of sourdough starter to a cup of milk. And today it curdled! And it tastes like kefir. We'll see how it goes from here...

Have you done this before?

I cultured another batch from the last, and it seems to have lost some of the complexity of flavor, tasting more like a mild buttermilk culture--probably, the diversity of microbes decreased because of the change in medium. I'll keep it going though because it's still good. The change could also have been temperature related, as the first batch was on a cold countertop and the second on a warm heat mat, so I'll try culturing it on a cold surface once more.

i was reading about this, as i sort of miss my milk kefir but not enough to go hunting for new starter. apparently you can do the same thing with a kombucha scoby, but it's hit and miss and eventually peters out (according to the internet). Hopefully yours keeps going!

I was trying to make water kefir....started with a bit of my sourdough starter, some live apple cider vinegar (ACV), and a teaspoon of live yoghurt into a molasses solution. I did get something going on, but it looked more like a scoby rather than kefir grains, I guess the ACV were dominating. I took the scobies out (there were two layers) and added each to some more molasses solution, but so far they have just sat there, so haven't progressed at all.

I think it is difficult to get the balance of organisms right without a working starter....but someone must have done it originally!

I purchase fresh milk from local nomads (i live in Africa). The pasteurized it before selling,  but all their containers are inoculation with yogurt bacteria. So when I bring it home I just let it sit out on the counter and get world's best yogurt in a couple hours.

I'm thinking all one would have to do to replicate this situation is to avoid washing containers with soap; just rinse well.

M Ljin wrote:I cultured another batch from the last, and it seems to have lost some of the complexity of flavor, tasting more like a mild buttermilk culture--probably, the diversity of microbes decreased because of the change in medium. I'll keep it going though because it's still good. The change could also have been temperature related, as the first batch was on a cold countertop and the second on a warm heat mat, so I'll try culturing it on a cold surface once more.

Did it work? I'd love to have milk kefir again and I have a sourdough starter and access to raw milk so... Interesting!