How can I determine which and how many cultures are in my home made Keifer?

[bungalowkev]

Im new here, just started making my home made Keifer every day. So far its OK but thinner and more tart/yeasty than the store bought that I have enjoyed. It occurs to me that , (unlike when i buy Kiefer where it tells you on the back what strains and how many billions of bacteria are present, ) I have no way of actually knowing which strains Im getting and how many in my home made. Can a person test it at home or is a lab expense necessary . Id like to know I'm maximizing its benefits because I have Crohns. Any thoughts?
thanks
Kev

[Robinstar]

Hi Kev

I've wondered that too. I checked once and I think its really expensive to test for probiotic strains. I know that in homemade kefir there's way more probiotics than store bought kefir. If you do figure out how to test it let me know the results, I would be curious. Thanks!

[Durgan]

I suspect with the present state of testing one has to take what you have on faith. My system is to view an active ferment and if you feel comfortable, stay with it. I have had three different sources and only one satisfied me. Again based on only faith, since I had no way of testing.

Healthy strong grains is about all on can go with. The supplier of grains on the internet do no testing. Almost any amount of material will cause the milk substrate to coagulate. How many live bodies making the kefir apparently can be very limited and still appear effective. In some cases I suspect is all that you have may be sour milk.

[BurtRus]

Can't believe that there's no way of testing this. How do they do it in big production plants then?

[Robinstar]

It's easy for store bought yogurt or kefir because all the variables are controlled, they know what strains go into their products and they will get a fairly consistent bacteria count every time. With homemade kefir, its a wild science experiment with too many variables and its always changing. Much harder to figure out. Even cultures for health does not test strains or probiotic count.