Making Yogurt

[montuos]

Making your own yogurt is actually simple as dirt. I had thought about it periodically over the years, but had never really bothered since we didn't eat all that much yogurt. However, I've been doing a lot of Indian cooking lately, and so many of the dishes want some yogurt stirred in to make a creamy sauce, and you just have to have a good thick

Comments

[stringlady]

Slow cooker or rice cooker as incubator. Hm.

Now, that gives me ideas...

I used to make yogurt - and getting the right even temperature became the problem, once I no longer had stoves with pilot lights. (The other problem was that the method I knew was all about using nonfat dry milk - and I don't *like* nonfat yogurt... took me a while to realize that was my major problem with it.) I may have to try this again.

[montuos]

Yeah, if you don't like the milk it's made from, what's the point? You sure won't eat it until you feel like you have to, and why go to that much trouble for something you don't want? Full-fat milk definitely sets up better, too.

Honestly, what I actually used the first go round (a single quart of 2% milk) was a little styrofoam cooler from an Omaha Steaks shipment. That's it. (And this is a house where the non-summer temperature is usually kept closer to 60 than 65.) I think it would have been fine if I had just left it alone for a full 8 hours (instead of opening it up every half hour to check it after the first five or six ;) but it might have done better if I had filled the extra space with more insulation, or ziplocks full of hot water... Even so, it still came out ok if a little on the thin side.

The second batch (whole milk) did better because of that, and because it was bigger so there was more of it to hold the heat, and because I started it after dinner instead of late afternoon so it went undisturbed all night,

[stringlady]

Well, I did at the time drink skim milk, so I didn't think of that... but I never did like nonfat yogurt. Tribblecat, however, does (he mixes it with enough things that I'm not sure how much he actually tastes it) so I may give my old method a try... The point of the dry milk was that you weren't supposed to have to scald it.

Meanwhile, I've discovered the joys of whole milk Greek yogurt (or rediscovered them - so *that's* what I was eating in Romania all those years ago...) I eat yogurt much less often, but, when I do, I eat more of it - and so, taste it more.

I did live for a long time in a very cold house, where that would have been helpful. Now, though, I'm in a hot apartment (NYC Con Ed Steam Heat, thank you... together with a full Southern exposure) so your further comments are also helpful.

So easy!

[ext_2437097]

Thanks for this! You made it look so easy that I gave it a go. It turned out great.

Re: So easy!

[montuos]

Awesome! Another convert sucked in! ;>

Did you do plain, or flavored? (What flavor?)

Next we'll have you making your own paneer, mozzarella, and string cheese! ;D