IS COLD MILK STRAIGHT FROM THE FRIDGE OK TO PREPARE KEFIR? OR DOES THE MILK NEED TO BE WARM?
Cold milk is quite suitable to culture kefir. Although the milk may be added warm to just below body heat before adding the warm milk to the grains. This would be how the people of Caucasus probably made [make] their kefir … fresh warm milk directly after milking would have been added to the grains in leather bags, on some occasions at least. Although if the milk is not fresh, then I am not certain if warming the milk first, would be recommended? I would be concerned about the cultivation of higher numbers of unwanted organisms due to warming refrigerated pasteurised milk. My recommendation is not to warm up any milk that is more than 2 days old. A workaround is to pasteurised older milk by heating to 70ºC. Quickly cool the milk to just below body heat by floating the pot of hot milk in a cold water bath. Then use the warm milk with kefir grains to culture kefir per usual manner.
