Camikatzy
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Compost kefir grains?

I make my own kefir for my morning smoothie and I love it, but the grains reproduce so fast and I don't know what to do with them. I've read somewhere that you can just put them in your pots mixed with soil but with no explanation of how they can help the plants or if it will help them at all. Then I tought about throwing them in the compost bin.

Have anyone tried that? Do you know if they help? Or is it harmful for the compost?

I know dairy products are not very good for the compost because of the fat, but this will be only the grains rinsed, no milk.

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applestar
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I haven’t been able to keep them growing so fast as to be able to dispose of the grains (I do eat the extra by putting them in the blender when making smoothies), but I don’t think it would be a problem to put them in the compost pile. The issue might be if there is concern about attracting rodents.

Are you culturing them in 8-18 hr cycles in room temperature? You can slow them down by refrigerating the grain jar. It takes them about 3-5 Days to mature kefir in the fridge. It’s actually best to keep them in warmer part of the fridge like the door, but my family likes to keep other things on the door shelves, and I lost the top shelf to taller items, so my kefir (grain and secondary fermentation/culture) jars are in the front of the 2nd shelf— eye-level means I can keep an eye on them and fiddle with them as needed anyway. The grains can keep in the fridge for a week without slowing down to a sort of dormant state, then they need to be revived in warmer environment with regular milk change several cycles.

My friend told me what she does is keep TWO grain jars, and alternate them for refrigerator and room temperature culturing.

In the summer, I just can’t keep up, so the kefir jars stay in the fridge all the time except occasional overnight on the counter to revive the grains and keep them active. I do culture them in room temperature of 60’s °F during the cold months.

Oh yeah. Another thing you can do with the extra grains is to culture nut milks, juices, and sweetened ginger water with them. The sugars will enable them to culture these water-based liquids, but because your milk kefir grains are NOT water kefir grains and need the components in milk that are not available, they will not grow and eventually shrivel up from expending themselves. Juices and ginger water should be strained and 2nd cultured with additional sugars in tightly closable, non-exploding bottles like wire bail stoppered ale bottles, or in fermentation jars with air-valves (ugh I’m drawing a blank — that’s not the right word...) for natural carbonation.



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