Crockpot Yogurt With Tempurature Guide
Hello all,
I have really enjoyed making my own yogurt in my crock pot, using the recipe from this web site: http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2008/10/you-can-make-yogurt-in-your-crockpot.html
that someone posted here a while ago. It's cheap, it's easy, and I'm the kind of nerd who gets a lot of satisfaction from being able to do something like this at home :)
However, I recently started having some trouble with the recipe. The milk only thickened slightly, or not at all, and I ended up having to throw it away. It didn't taste great, and I wasn't really sure it was safe to eat.
I ended up investing in a kitchen thermometer and searching on the internet for the optimum teperature for yogurt growth. I found this web site:
http://biology.clc.uc.edu/Fankhauser/cheese/yogurt_making/yogurt2000.htm
Their recipe is not for the crock pot, but I adapted it, because it seemed simpler that way. After all, I had been getting good results with the original recipe. I figured that letting the milk cool for a certain period of time was just a inexact way of controling the temperature.
I heated the milk in my crock pot on high, checking the temperature every half hour and not letting the thermometer touch the crock pot itself, untill it read in the range of 185-195 F, 85-90 C. This took about two hours, but that's a very rough estimate.
Then I turned the crock pot off and let it cool to between 122-130 F, 50 to 55 C. I took the lid off and stired it a few times to get it to cool more quickly.
When the tempurature was right, I mixed two cups of the warm milk with one cup of yogurt starter, then poured the mixture back into the crock pot. I wrapped the crock pot in aluminum foil and a beach towel and let it sit overnight.
This recipe ended up being a real breakthrough for me. I've never made such thick yogurt before, and now that I know what tempuratures to shoot for I have a lot more confidense in the recipe (I did not like throwing out two quarts of milk when things went wrong). I hope these tips are useful to the rest of you.
I have really enjoyed making my own yogurt in my crock pot, using the recipe from this web site: http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2008/10/you-can-make-yogurt-in-your-crockpot.html
that someone posted here a while ago. It's cheap, it's easy, and I'm the kind of nerd who gets a lot of satisfaction from being able to do something like this at home :)
However, I recently started having some trouble with the recipe. The milk only thickened slightly, or not at all, and I ended up having to throw it away. It didn't taste great, and I wasn't really sure it was safe to eat.
I ended up investing in a kitchen thermometer and searching on the internet for the optimum teperature for yogurt growth. I found this web site:
http://biology.clc.uc.edu/Fankhauser/cheese/yogurt_making/yogurt2000.htm
Their recipe is not for the crock pot, but I adapted it, because it seemed simpler that way. After all, I had been getting good results with the original recipe. I figured that letting the milk cool for a certain period of time was just a inexact way of controling the temperature.
I heated the milk in my crock pot on high, checking the temperature every half hour and not letting the thermometer touch the crock pot itself, untill it read in the range of 185-195 F, 85-90 C. This took about two hours, but that's a very rough estimate.
Then I turned the crock pot off and let it cool to between 122-130 F, 50 to 55 C. I took the lid off and stired it a few times to get it to cool more quickly.
When the tempurature was right, I mixed two cups of the warm milk with one cup of yogurt starter, then poured the mixture back into the crock pot. I wrapped the crock pot in aluminum foil and a beach towel and let it sit overnight.
This recipe ended up being a real breakthrough for me. I've never made such thick yogurt before, and now that I know what tempuratures to shoot for I have a lot more confidense in the recipe (I did not like throwing out two quarts of milk when things went wrong). I hope these tips are useful to the rest of you.