No Buttermilk But Found Kefir

[BakerAunt]

My local grocery was out of buttermilk on Tuesday. I made a special trip today (Saturday), and no buttermilk was to be found. I have my heart set on Cornmeal-Pumpernickel Waffles for Breakfast tomorrow, which requires 3 cups of buttermilk. However, I found a bottle of unsweetened Kefir, read the ingredients, and bought it. After I got home, I googled it, and learned that kefir can be substituted equally for buttermilk. It is a lot more expensive--over $5 for a quart, while buttermilk is usually about $2.79 for a half gallon, but as I said, my heart is set on Cornmeal-Pumpernickel Waffles for tomorrow.

I've had the experience in this area before of buttermilk being less available in my local store in fall to winter, and I've wondered if that is because of the focus on eggnog, either by producers or by the store. I use a lot of buttermilk in my baking, and I will have to shift around for the bread that I'm baking today by using the half cup or so that I have left with regular milk. Had I known that I'd not be able to get it today, I would have tried culturing some, although it did not work well last time I tried, and we won't have the wood stove going for a while because the contractor is behind (too many jobs at once), and we have stuff from the apt. over the garage (what we are renovating) piled up in front of it.

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[Mike Nolan]

It strikes me as strange to find kefir but not buttermilk. That'd be like finding octopus but not shrimp.

[Mike Nolan]

I know you can use kefir as a seed to make more kefir, like you do with buttermilk.

[Janiebakes]

I thin some of my plain homemade yogurt with water and sub that for buttermilk.

[BakerAunt]

I have been meaning to ask you, Janiebakes: Do you use purchased yogurt as starter for your yogurt, or do you buy packs of yogurt culture? I've been using full-fat Stonyfield yogurt as my starter, as it is the only non-Greek yogurt I can get here that does not have modified starch added to it. When I first started making yogurt, years ago, I used to purchase little packets of starter for an initial batch, then use the yogurt I had made as starter until the culture started weakening, then I would use another packet. I have not found yogurt packets for sale around here. I make my yogurt, 6 (3/4 cup-jars) at a time, and I eat a jar of it with breakfast every morning to increase my calcium intake. I use such large amounts of buttermilk that it is not practical for me to use diluted yogurt.

[BakerAunt]

Mike--I was surprised to find non-sweetened kefir and might have overlooked it had I not been looking at the yogurt and not finding one that I considered ok to use to thin into a buttermilk consistency. I might have overlooked it except that my younger stepson likes to drink blueberry kefir, so I was familiar with the bottle shape and thought, oh, so NOW they get it when I don't need it, but then I noticed it was unsweetened.

The grocery store in our town has a mixed clientele. There are the townspeople who are not that particularly health conscious, but there are also the summer and weekend people, as well as the parents who have kids at the local prep boarding school, and some of the people who teach at the school. There is a small section of foods used for Asian cooking, and there are the occasional upscale cheeses, yogurts, and wines. There is a small gluten-free and Bob's Red Mill section. Last week, when the son was in town, I could only find a single small bottle of raspberry kefir for him, which tided him over until we made a grocery run to the town northeast of here. Whether the large bottles of kefir (there were two) are an aberration or a new stock item remains to be seen. I'm just glad that I found it this time.

[Janiebakes]

I use Trader Joe's European stye yogurt when I need new starter but I do save some yogurt from each batch. Sometimes I ferment it too long and it becames more tart than I like so I start again. I think once you go too warm or ferment too long it favors different bacteria that leads to a tarter product. Long ago I used those dried starter packets but have not seen them for some time. Also,I like to taste the finished product before I use it as a starter. This is the list of ingredients for Tj's european stye yogurt: pasteurized organic nonfat milk, organic sweet cream buttermilk, living yogurt cultures: l. acidophilus, l. bulgaricus, s. thermophilus and bifidobacterium lactis. It is made by the Straus Family Creamery. Tj's plain kefir has no sugar but has 12 strains of bacteria. I have to take antibiotics before dental cleanings and I always lay in a suppley of plain kefir and Kimchi and a small piece of cheese as well as homemade yogurt. I make 12/13 one cup jars every week or so. Using mason jars has saved hundreds of wasted plastic pots. We eat it for breakfast everyday and use it for salad dressing and buttermilk substitute. Can I ask how much buttermilk you use a week? Just being nosey.

[BakerAunt]

How much buttermilk I use depends on what I am baking in a given week. I substitute buttermilk for water in most of my bread recipes. I use buttermilk in place of milk (and adjust baking powder and baking soda accordingly) in most muffin and quick bread recipes. I use buttermilk in my oil pie crust. My coleslaw recipe has a buttermilk dressing. I probably go through half a gallon every 2 1/2 weeks or so.

Buttermilk, as S. Swirth always told us, improves the keeping qualities of baked goods. I started using it a lot when I needed to get more calcium into my diet.

[Janiebakes]

I have always used buttermilk in my baking too. It does make a huge difference. Sounds like you need about a quart or so of buttermilk a week. Three or four one cup jars of yogurt would be enough. I use my oven with the light on to ferment the yogurt so I could fill a half sheet pan with jars. If you are using an instant pot or a dedicated yogurt maker I can see how it could limit the number of jars per batch.

[BakerAunt]

The plot thickens--or perhaps I should say, curdles? We did our weekly grocery trip today, and again there was no buttermilk, but now there were about seven bottles of kefir. Sigh. I bought another one to tide me over.

I did ask the store manager, and she was surprised, especially when I told her there was none last week. The milk delivery had not come, but she said that she would call me if buttermilk arrived. I received no call, so it probably did not. She said that she would ask the delivery person.

Stay tuned for developments!

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