Experiments in Preserving Milk Kefir Grains

Every year I seem to hit a bit of a dry spell in terms of milk. This year I hoped to change that by breeding Sky for a fall kidding. While that was a success, she was never trained to the milk stand and is absolutely terrified of it. So it’s been slow to get her used to being milked. I think in part, this is because she’s an older doe. My experience with the younger ones is that they may not like it at first, but they adapt pretty quickly because, well, food. Sky is much more leery. 

One of the reasons I want year around milk is for our kefir. It’s an important part of our diet, and also, kefir grains are alive and need to be nurtured. That means a regular supply of milk. When we have no homegrown supply of milk, I have to buy it, just to keep my kefir grains alive. This year, I decided to experiment in preserving milk kefir grains. If I can do that, I won’t have to worry about buying milk. 

My first experiment was to dehydrate some grains. Kefir multiplies, so extra grains are pretty easy to come by.

I’m still keeping some going with boughten milk, so I’ll still have have some in case my experiments fail. Hopefully, I’ll have success!

I’m curious if any of you have preserved kefir grains and how well it worked. Any tips would be welcome.