Yogurt, the making of

Ok.. the long overdue post.. that disappeared on me twice as a draft for some reason. Grrr…

Anyway… yogurt, homemade, without a special yogurt maker machine.

 

You need:

1 gallon of milk (roughly 16 cups), any random supermarket milk works fine

1 cup powdered milk (only needed if you use lowfat or 2% milk vs whole, and only then for taste)

1 container supermarket yogurt (see notes below), or 1 cup of previously made yogurt, preferably room temp

(yes, you get pics. maybe not the most exciting pics in the world, but hey… its not really that visually exciting of a process)

kitchen stuff:

candy thermometer

large pot or pan(5 quart or bigger)

heat safe container (mason jars work great, casserole pans, even a glass bowl)

oven or thermos or towels (this makes more sense later)

 

 

Ok, first off, I almost always cut this in half… the measurements are all an even 1, so easily reduced as needed. It keeps for about 10 days to 2 weeks, roughly the same expiration as your milk normally if you are using freshly purchased milk.

 

The process:

• Pour milk into pan, and heat to between 180 and 200 degrees, stirring constantly so it doesn’t scorch.
  You don’t want it boiling, but just under that. Some recipes said to hold it there for 10 minutes… I don’t… haven’t noticed a difference.
  

• If you are using powdered milk, add to the still hot milk and stir to dissolve.
• Cool the milk back down to between 110 and 120 degrees.
  This is critical so that you don’t kill the cultures. I’m pretty sure one of my batches died because I was watching the large 125 line on my thermometer instead and got impatient. Another batch cooled a bit too far to just below 100, and it still set up, it just took longer. So err on the side of too cool. 
  You can just let it sit off the heat and stir, or let the pan float in a sink of cold water, or dump milk into a pitcher and put in fridge… whatever works for you.
  
• Mix the starter yogurt with about a cup of the warm milk, and stir until smooth, then add into the pan of milk and stir well.
• Pour into your containers, cover with lids or foil. (On mason jars I set the lids on, but leave the rings off for this part or they get hard to open later.) I usually fill them half full so I can add things to it in the same jar, but you can fill all the way.
  
  (half batch pictured)

 

• Keep them undisturbed and warm (around 100 degrees) until yogurt is firm. 
  This is where there is a lot of variation on strategy between recipes. I go with having the oven preheated to 150 or 200, turning it off before putting them in, and having it done in 3-5 hours. Do not forget to turn it off, another batch died that way… but you can turn it on for a few minutes here and there to speed things up as long as you keep it low (open the oven door for a minute if you space out and let it get up to the full 150 or 200 again)   

  Some people recommend putting it into a large thermos, which I didn’t have and wouldn’t want to get thick yogurt out of anyways. Others say to wrap your container in warm towels and leave it, some then go further and put that into a cooler or turned off oven. Those usually need left overnight to finish. Some use crockpots on the lowest setting and with lid propped open a bit.
  

• Yogurt is done when its mostly firm, though it will set up a bit more in the fridge. You can leave it sit longer if you want more tart yogurt.
  The liquid you may or may not have isn’t water, its whey… which is supposed to have lots of calcium and protein and nutrients and whatnot. Some say you should drink it, but even though it looks like lemonade, it smells like cottage cheese. You can also apparently make ricotta cheese out of it. We’ve just been using it to boil rice or pasta in.
• Note: Store bought yogurt usually has some sweeteners, even in plain. So you are pretty much going to have to add something sweet, even if its just honey, unless you really like tart tasting yogurt. We usually use stevia, about 2 packets per cup of yogurt as a base, then more depending on what its being used for.

 

Important notes about texture and starter yogurt:

If your yogurt is too runny for your taste, you can place a coffee filter (or cheesecloth) into a strainer or colander above a bowl and let the yogurt drain some of the whey off, which will thicken it up pretty quickly.

It usually takes about half an hour per quart of sitting in the strainer in a bowl in the fridge, but if you leave it too long (like 3 hours or more), it will turn into yogurt cheese with a texture like cream cheese…. a different goal entirely, but not something we liked in any of the recipes we found for it.

For starter yogurt, you can use anything that says live cultures on the container, which every one I looked at in the store here did. (Some listed it in the ingredients). You can even use something that is flavored, as it will be diluted enough to not matter, but you might want to avoid ones with chunks of fruit, or stir through it with a fork first to remove most of them

The yogurt you start with makes a big difference in the texture, and a bit of difference in the flavor.

 

I used greek yogurt in the batch pictured, which has a lot of whey when its done, but tends to be thicker and has more of a tart, distinctively yogurt-y taste to it.

Yoplait normally has almost no whey at all at first, but when you stir it tends to be a lot more runny from the extra whey still incorporated, and tends to seep more why out as it sits in the fridge to be used. But it does have a more neutral flavor, and a more smooth texture.

Since the runny can be fixed a lot easier than the tart taste, we’ve usually been sticking with the yoplait and letting it drain. 

Dannon ended up about like the yoplait, but a bit less neutral flavor. Have also heard that it can sometimes have somewhat weak strains if you are using your fresh yogurt to make new yogurt repeatedly, and you may have to boost with store bought more often, but we haven’t used it enough to test this personally.