My milk kefir grains now produce kefir with a very unpleasant yeasty/bready flavor. I've tried feeding it for a while, on the assumption that the yeast/bacteria will get back into balance, but this has failed. I'm worried there may be cross-contamination from sourdough starter.
Is there a way to fix this, or do I need to obtain fresh kefir grains?
I can not give you an answer to your question, but whenever I had problems with kefir, I was told to thoroughly rinse the tuber and restart the kefir. On this German Website they recommend to restart with 200ml of milk and 1 tablespoon of lactose for a recovery of the kefir. I do not know if this could change the yeast to bacteria ratio.
On a sideline, this Russian website recommend a ratio of 107 CFU/g of lactic acid bacteria to 104 CFU/g of yeast for health reasons. If you don't get the yeast to bacteria ratio down, maybe a fresh start with a kefir with 104:107 could help?
Your options are either to change the milk or cover the taste with any type of sweeteners like sugar honey cinnamon nutmeg. If you make smoothies you can add all types of fruit. Don't worry about the sugar intake as the kefir should be suppressing your candida.
You can soak your grains in kefir that you find more pleasant, for about one week. Add a touch of cream.... Or, try fermenting at a cooler temp, takes a little longer but seems to help. Yeasty kefir is VERY tasty with a touch of honey.... Also, try second ferment with an orange slice, so good!!
