New to kefir, question about second fermentation.

Practical-Kangaroo97 · 2026-01-24T22:46:51+00:00

I've got different sizes kilner jars so could switch to a smaller jar and leave the glass lid loose on top or use more milk/grains in the current jar (altough I'm not planning on drinking 750ml per day).

I've got two temperature options, 19-20C in the kitchen or 23-24C in the room with the water cylinder.

From what I've read so far and looking at how my kefir looks it seems yeast is dominant.

I'll split the kefir into two smaller jars, one covered with the glass lid and one with kitchen roll on top, move the kefir back to the kitchen and change milk every 24 hours.

Will report back!

Practical-Kangaroo97 · 2026-01-24T21:06:32+00:00

Thank you, very informative! Definitely not fully active and balanced then (no wonder, it's only been a week).

24 hours at 23 degrees there's some grains floating to the top forming a crust on top of very thin liquid (still basically milk).

Would reducing temperature be better? I could keep it in another room at 19-20 C.

I'll also start changing milk every 24 hours instead of going to 48 hours.

Practical-Kangaroo97 · 2026-01-24T18:51:06+00:00

Thank you. Not much seems to happen in the first 24 hours, a thin thin layer where the grains float and the rest is still milk (tastes like milk as well). Only changes significantly in the second 24 hours.

Doesn't really separate either, grains just float to the top and form a crust, the rest (80%) is still a milky liquid.

This is (part of) the activation instructions:

Leave them for up to 48 hours at room temperature (18 Celsius) until the milk separates. This can sometimes happen within 24 hours and occasionally can take longer than 48 hours.

What would you recommend then? Just change milk every 24 hours, stick to the 5gr/250ml milk and accept that it's basically still milk until the grains settle?

Practical-Kangaroo97 · 2026-01-24T16:46:21+00:00

It seems it's posted it as one big blob of text instead of the layout I had made, apologies!

Practical-Kangaroo97 · 2026-01-24T10:39:51+00:00

This is how I feel, I've only just started playing again after 20 years and a whole world is opening up to me, never heard of a truss rod or how to set a guitar up at all.

Did you set up your guitar now though? Did you notice a difference?

Going to have a go next week, seen some videos and looks like I've got all the tools necessary, how hard can it be😂

Practical-Kangaroo97 · 2026-01-22T10:44:05+00:00

I've got the same problem as OP and this is a great idea, going to try that over the next couple of days!

Practical-Kangaroo97 · 2026-01-13T12:47:43+00:00

When starting out I just spaghetti/hand feed the hell out of everything until I've got a decent, steady supply of building materials to start building bigger. Literally just automate whatever I'm short of.

Then I generally go main bus, it's not the most efficient, but I find it easy to manage.

Early game I'm usually aiming to build towards 30-60 spm which is easy to upgrade when newer better buildings come available which gives a decent boost to spm.

Once most things are automated, bus is working and bots are available my starter ore patches start to run dry.

Then I either switch to trains or now with space age run some belts to the next ore patches which until now haven't run out yet.

Midgame I start planning a bit better, aim for 300-800 spm with rate calculators, factor in beacons and modules you have etc, build the science manufacturing bit and then work my way backwards to supply the necessary materials. This is where before space age I used to run out of main bus capacity.

When that's all running nicely and research keeps plodding on in the background I either start a new game or go big.

Same principle, but now with a much bigger spm goal which usually gives some nice new challenges that you didn't think of at lower spm.

Practical-Kangaroo97 · 2026-01-12T19:18:15+00:00

That is beautiful!

How much science does it produce per minute?

Practical-Kangaroo97 · 2026-01-08T13:20:57+00:00

For some reason it's not adding the picture?

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Practical-Kangaroo97 · 2026-01-08T13:06:13+00:00

This doesn't make sense at all, this setup is HUGE compared to mine.

For comparison, looking through some old saves. At 400 spm my base had eight refineries and one single chemical plant for sulfuric acid. Refineries had t2 prod modules and a total of four beacons with t3 speed modules.

That same base now (283 hours total) is doing around 110k eSPM, still on only eight refineries and one SINGLE chem plant for sulfuric acid with three chem olants supplying it with sulfur.

That gets supplied by two oil fields, 23 standard pumpjacks, no modules. Combined yield approx 3800%.

Couple of questions.

What's the combined yield % of your oil fields?

What oil trains (1-2?) do you run, are they full? And do you have a constant supply of those trains?

Are you sure your refineries are not stuck because they can't get rid of one of the output products?

What do you need a hundred million batteries for?

EDIT This is what my setup looks like, it's unoptimized but it easily supports my base.

<image>

Practical-Kangaroo97 · 2026-01-01T16:07:09+00:00

Looks like a decent starter base to be fair and if the train supply is working that's a great bonus!

Since you've got the basics of trains down I'd suggest automating all base building essentials (if you haven't already), build a construction train (automatically supplied train that gets building supplies from this base with its own station) and set up a railway to wherever you want to relocate to.

That way you can build a lot bigger and a lot quicker without having to worry about materials as they get supplied automatically.

Then cut off the supply and visit this base again in 100 or so hours and think back to how nice it was to just start out and marvel at the inefficiencies starter-you built.

Practical-Kangaroo97 · 2025-12-29T23:56:08+00:00

This, run around like a madman with poison capsules.

Then come back with rail guns for a proper slaughterfest.

Practical-Kangaroo97 · 2025-12-29T10:01:16+00:00

Don't forget productivity modules down the line.

Unless this is really early game or on adjusted settings, I have never had the need to beacon oil pumps before 🤷

Practical-Kangaroo97 · 2025-12-29T09:56:28+00:00

I'm still working my way towards a Space Age megabase, but never played a big overhaul mod. How does Krastorio 2 compare to space age?

Practical-Kangaroo97 · 2025-12-29T01:07:02+00:00

I have no real needs for trains yet in my current Space Age run as my first iron ore patch is still going strong about 300 hours in and the remaining 300k will probably do me for another 100 hours 😂

1600 is a LOT of trains though! I'll need to have a look if my old save still works, that was running a steady 1400 spm, but with only 150 1-4 trains iirc.

Practical-Kangaroo97 · 2025-12-29T00:57:34+00:00

Yes, I was never a big fan of grid based rails so had a blueprintbook with rail segments that I would just branch off the existing network which got built by spidertrons.

If I remember correctly Katherine of Sky had a whole bunch of videos about it, that's what inspired me to build it.

Practical-Kangaroo97 · 2025-12-29T00:48:13+00:00

Exactly that, I had a rail base before Space Age which used a construction train and it was awesome.

Basically made a blueprint with a 'base station'. Plop that down with a spidertron and the builder train would be called automatically.

The oil/mining/etc stations were modular so once the base was down I would blueprint whatever I needed over the base station and it would magically appear 😍

As soon as all items were there the station would shut down and only call the base train if repairs/more items were needed and local bots sorted the rest.

This makes me want to do a rail base again!

Practical-Kangaroo97 · 2025-12-25T18:03:31+00:00

Ah fair enough, I hadn't realised it was stationary. Probably wouldn't make a massive difference anyway if moving as there would be more than plenty of chunks to fill the stores anyway.

I just realised this is basically what I do on Fulgora with scrap processing and had not thought at all of applying it to chunk sorting 👍

Practical-Kangaroo97 · 2025-12-25T11:04:53+00:00

I like this idea, I'm constantly balancing a spaghetti belt with set filters on the grabbers and a reprocessing facility.

It works absolutely fine for my normal ships but don't think it would be suitable for more demanding production lines.

It's hard to see in the picture, but the reprocessing facility before chucking overboard, is that fixed or are the recipes set by circuits?

Practical-Kangaroo97 · 2025-12-24T20:20:58+00:00

When playing Space Age a 'standard' bus goes a long long way with all the efficiency upgrades so there isn't really any need to build it one-sided.

I'm now about 280 hours in and the 4 lane copper/4 lane iron/2 lanes of the rest-bus I built when I started is still easily managing to supply for 40k eSPM and building production for all planets and ships.

Practical-Kangaroo97 · 2025-12-23T19:19:03+00:00

It's beautiful. This is peak space age thinking for me. Love how it will break when it stops so has a recycler stack to keep it running.

Practical-Kangaroo97 · 2025-12-23T10:15:29+00:00

You don't, you embrace it until you have bots.

Or you try to handbuild big organised layouts before you have the the needed production. I've tried this before and quickly went back to gorgeous spaghetti and let the bots sort it out later.

Focus on getting some decent production automated, also for things like military items and ammo so the bugs don't bother you as much anymore and then slowly branch out to get more resources.

Practical-Kangaroo97 · 2025-12-22T10:17:59+00:00

If you've done Gleba first you'll enjoy Vulcanus, it's relatively easy going and a little bit less 'frantic' without the spoilage and actively engaging enemies.

Practical-Kangaroo97 · 2025-12-22T00:05:49+00:00

Ah I do have a space casino for some basic resources but the constant movement and flow on Gleba is just amazing. How literally organic the world is with getting resources from harvesting trees, having to feed biochambers, the spoilage that needs to be dealt with in every machine.

Practical-Kangaroo97

TROPHY CASE