Kefir Kommunity

We're the first to admit that, unless you grew up drinking it, kefir can be a mysterious food! While almost everyone who tries it likes it, we get a lot of questions regarding some of kefir's quirks. We do have a pretty thorough FAQ that we recommend checking out, but we thought we'd take a minute to address a seasonal FAQ here.



I've been buying your kefir for months, and now all of the sudden it's lumpy. What gives?

We get this question a lot in the winter months, and there are a few reasons why your kefir has lumps. For one, winter milk tends to be thicker than summer milk. Believe it or not, the Midwest has some really hot summer months! Our cows are drinking more water then, so their milk is a little thinner. When it's cold out, though, a higher concentration of protein solids makes the milk thicker, resulting in a thicker kefir.

Additionally, our milk is non-homogenized and we don't add any chemical stabilizers to it, so some of those lumps might be bits of fat and cream from the milk that have stuck together as result of the culturing process.

So what if you don't like lumps? No worries! You should always give kefir a good shake before you drink it. In the wintertime, leave it out on your counter for a few minutes until it loses the chill from your refrigerator. Once it's warmed up a bit, shake it up and it should smooth out for you.

Remember, kefir has a long shelf life - up until the expiration date printed on the bottle, so lumps don't mean it's gone bad. It's just a quirk associated with producing an all-natural product!

Do you have questions about kefir that aren't in our FAQ? We'd love to hear them and possibly blog about them in the future!