It was more of a christy-o-twisty topic than an old computing one
but one of my more successful culinary ventures (let's not speak
of the lasagna debacle) has been an unsuccessful attempt to
liberate some khefir.
So far as I understand, khefir is an heirloom SCOBY drink.
Crystals of the living SCOBY reproduce when fed more milk.
In New Zealand, supermarkets sell a thin yoghurt drink as khefir,
with no crystals in it, but presumably the Fourteen Strains Of
Probiotic were extracted from or are also present in the khefir
yeast-bacteria complex (SCOBY).
Actually, I was looking for a way to make powdered milk palatable.
At least what we have here has a weird flavor not present in milk.
My approach was to just mix up some powdered milk and keep feeding
it to the depleted bottle of khefir probiotic yoghurt drink, which
just lives at room temperature on a shelf.
At first it seemed kind of inactive, so I tried giving it some
inspiration by pouring in a little of
-that thin liquid you get on the top of soymilk turned tofu
-ground coffee that I innoculated with wild Coprosma robusta
-(presumably sterile) brown sugar
The brown sugar at least made it sparking, which I believe khefir
is normally. However I never developed crystal complexes.
Khefir crystals are meant to have a common ancestry since they
reproduce, but I read an article where some Taiwanese scientists
just tried introducing the beasts present in khefir to each other,
and they found it was common for (new) SCOBY complexes to emerge.
But I have had no such luck.
On the other hand, it now definitely makes a lot of fresh yoghurt
which I now keep two bottles = 4 litres of. The flavor and texture
are very different to what I originally got from the supermarket,
much better basically. And after about 24 hours, there is no trace
of the "milk powder" flavor. So I consider this a great victory of
creating a living milk/yoghurt culture.
Actually, the two bottles have clearly diverged. One must have got
a maybe cheese forming culture in it from somewhere. It's more
savory, and glumpy. I think it would be a good candidate for
cottage cheese. Whereas the other stays a bit thinner longer.
So while I am not claiming to reach the fabled khefir levels of
culture, I definitely report success at this approach:
- Get a "probiotic" from the supermarket
- Re-feed it with reconstituted milk powder
- It doesn't want a fridge
- Keep going
And that it was resilient to me introducing some strange cultures
to it.
