YAMAN, Hilmi Adnan Menderes University - School of Health Sciences - Department of Nutrition and Dietetics, TURKEY

Kefir: A fermented milk product and production methods

18239

Traditional kefir can not be prepared withoutkefir grains. It is agreed that the presence of kefir grains are always necessary to produce a traditional kefir. These must be recovered in gelatinous form from kefir after fermentation and they can not be re-constructed from individual microbial components. Any attempts to obtain new kefir grains by various combination of micro-organisms isolated from original grains have failed. Kefir differs from other fermented milk products such as buttermilk and yoghurt which are made with a suspension of growing cells evenly distributed in milk. Large scale production of kefir must therefore, require different fermentation process steps and equipment to those used for large scale production of yoghurt. Recent work has focused on the importance of the grain for consistent kefir production. However, it has been also suggested that it is possible to produce a much more uniform product using freeze-dried concentrated cultures made from kefir grains than kefir produced with grains.

43

Kefir , fermented milk , production , grain

Kocatepe Veterinary Journal

56