I've been culturing kefir since I received the grains awhile ago.  I learned one thing; I don't care for kefir.  I don't mind the sour, but the yeasty taste just doesn't go down well.  So, I've been feeding it to the dogs and dreaming of trying cheese making.

Yes, cheese making!  There is a group on Yahoo dedicated to making kefir, and the founder has a website giving instructions on using the fermented milk to make cheese.

My first effort was a few weeks ago, using a gallon of milk and a cup of kefir.  I got a few curds, maybe 1/4 cup, so I thought what the heck, I'll just cool it down a bit and make yogurt.  Lots of yogurt...

Then I watched the video on the website and Dom uses something like 1.5 cups kefir to .5 gal of milk.  So, I bought another gallon of milk and fermented 2 cups with the kefir grains.

Today, I heated the milk to 140 deg F like the site suggested, then added the kefir and stirred slowly.  I was expecting quick action like what was on the video, but nothing seemed to be happening.  A few curds formed on the surface and a little bit of whey formed within, but the milk remained pretty much intact.

So I boosted the temp up to 155 deg F and kept stirring real slow.  Then suddenly, like magic, the curds started forming and separated from the whey; the pot of heating milk suddenly turned into white curds floating on straw-colored whey.

The half gallon of milk yielded MAYBE 1.5 cups of curds.  They taste pretty good, though salt-free.  I used part of the whey for the dog food, and will probably save the rest for tomorrow's doggy dinner.  This was just one of my fun experiments, so I don't know yet what I'll do with the curds.  However, Dom's website tells how to make mozarella cheese from curds, so I might give that a try.  And, if it really works, I'll know what to do with these kefir grains!