Yogurt

Yogurt

I've made a couple of batches of yogurt and so have an opinion or two about the process. You can find the details of yogurt making on dozens of other sites so I'm going to provide comments based on my experiences.

Basically yogurt is a way of preserving milk. Friendly bacteria eat lactose into lactic acid. This apparently causes the proteins in the milk to clump creating curds which, with any luck, will become tasty yogurt.

What kind of milk? I'd recommend 2% or higher. I started using skim milk and it gives a runny yogurt. A lot of recipes call for adding nonfat dry milk to help it set. I like to avoid adding anything into a recipe I don't have to. Dry milk isn't something I can easily create on my own so I'm going to pass on that. Just use 2% or higher and it'll set quite nicely and you won't have to add anything.

Ingredients: Milk and starter. You can buy starter but why not just buy some yogurt instead? I just used the generic brand of plain yogurt from the supermarket that I used to buy anyway. Make sure it has active cultures, which many do anyway. You can buy organic if you want, but I'm still undecided on that detail.

Containers: I use mason jars and old yogurt tubs. Both seem to work well. Use what you have

Essential tools: a cooking thermometer. The process involves heating the milk to 175 then cooling it down to around 110 (optimal temp for bacteria) so you'll want to know the temperature. I'm honestly also considering a double boiler so I don't have to attend to the milk during heating so much.

Cooling the milk after its reached 175: a water bath is useful for this, just be careful you don't cool it too fast and shoot under 110.

Keeping the milk at the right temperature: Once the milk is around 112-115 degrees I put in the yogurt starter (I'm not exact, I just dump a few spoonfuls of the previous yogurt into the new one.) Then I transfer the containers (1-2) into a cooler then stuff that cooler with towels and top it with a towel and close the lid. This seems to work. There are 'yogurt makers' you can buy that are just incubators really. Sometimes I'm tempted but I'm too cheap.

Costs: The yogurt you make is in a 1:1 ratio with the milk you used. So if you use a gallon of milk you'll make a gallon of yogurt. That's pretty good. Up my way I can buy a gallon of store brand milk for $3.50 but pay about a $1.80 or so for less than a quart, so I'm saving over 50%.

Taste: its plain yogurt so its tart and tangy which I like just fine. But if you've never had plain yogurt keep this in mind. Most yogurt is sweetened and stuff (lots of it) is added. But I keep mine plain in the fridge and if I want berries I just add some at the time of eating.

Time: I can get the milk from jug to cooler in about 30-60 minutes. I haven't timed myself, but its not long. I like to do it at night and let the milk sour into yogurt over night.

So there you go, my two cents. Yogurt isn't complicated, don't let some recipes fool you.