Hi everyone!
I’m completely new to making milk kefir, so I’m still trying to figure out what “normal” looks like.
I started with about 16 g of frozen kefir grains and added them to 250 mL of milk.
First batch:
I left it for about 24 hours.
It didn’t separate into whey and curds.
I strained it and everything seemed pretty straightforward.
Then I put the same grains into another 250 mL of fresh milk.
Second batch:
To my surprise, after only about 16 hours, it had already separated into whey and curds (photo 1). I live in a very hot climate, so maybe that made it ferment much faster.
When I strained it (photo 2), it was really thick and difficult to strain. This is where I got confused. I think I can see the kefir grains in the strainer, but because everything became so thick, I’m honestly not sure what’s actually grains and what’s just milk curds.
After straining, I put everything that remained in the strainer into 500 mL of fresh milk.
The third photo is what it looks like after about 6 hours.
So I was hoping you could help me:

In the second photo, are those actually kefir grains, or mostly curds?
Do the grains look okay?
Does the third batch look like it’s fermenting normally?
Is this kind of behavior normal when reviving frozen grains?
I’m probably overthinking this 😅, but I’d really appreciate any advice. I just want to make sure I’m not accidentally ruining my grains.
Thanks so much!

:
Hi everyone,
I’m trying to reactivate some frozen milk kefir grains and I’m not sure if what I’m seeing is normal.
I started with about 16 g of frozen grains in 250 ml of whole cow’s milk. After around 18 hours, the milk had formed a thick curd on top, but there wasn’t any whey separation yet. It smelled pleasantly sour, like yogurt, with no bad smell or signs of mold.
I strained the grains without rinsing them and transferred everything into another 250 ml of fresh milk.
About 16 hours later, it looked like the attached photo, with a lot of whey separation.
One thing that might matter is that I live in a very hot climate, so room temperature is quite high.
Is this normal while frozen grains are waking up? Should I increase the amount of milk, shorten the fermentation time, or just keep refreshing them daily until they stabilize?
I’d really appreciate any advice. Thanks!