Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

i make my own yogurt. i use the recipe that comes with the Donvier model (link is here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000DE4TY) , however i change it up a bit (add flavors, honey, etc). i normally make my yogurt with organic 2% milk and either use a yogurt from my last batch, yogurt starter (which you can buy in the cheese aisle at better grocery stores), or a store-bought organic yogurt to use as the base. i enjoy making my own yogurt because you can control what you put into it. i used to eat yoplait for years, and one day looked at the list of ingredients and wasn't pleased. i like the stoneyfield farm brand, but since i eat yogurt almost every day, the cost was getting high on those.

I make my own yogurt without any special gadgets. Bring a half gallon of milk to a boil and let it cool to 37 degrees C, or to the point that you can stick your finger in the milk for 10 seconds without burning. Then add a half cup or so of starter yogurt (I use Brown Cow or my previous batch of homemade yogurt) and stir it in a bit. Then wrap some dishtowels around the pot to slow the cooling and put it in a warm, undisturbed location, like the oven, overnight and you'll have yogurt in the morning. It might be a little watery, in which case you can strain it with cheesecloth or even some heavy duty papertowels. Refrigeration will also thicken it up a bit.

I make my yogurt with a yogurt maker (the model I have is Salton, was about $30, but is for some reason not currently available on Amazon, where I bought mine). It is so easy and not fussy at all - and though a yogurt maker is specialized equipment, it's far from fancy and it's worth it to me for the piece of mind knowing that my yogurt will be kept at the correct temperature, especially since I like mine quite sour and thick, so I usually let it go about 10-12 hours.

I originally bought my yogurt maker because I wanted to make unsweetened soy yogurt (which I've never found in stores), and I wanted to avoid using all those plastic containers - even buying it by the quart they really added up. I highly recommend making your own yogurt, if you eat it regularly - it's economical and you have total control over what goes into it.

I had the Donvier and loved it at first (it took a while to get the recipe right: we like it really tart). Then the warming units seemed to go out: my yogurt would never set, and I'd just have sour milk. However, many props to Donvier, who asked me to send in the broken base and then sent me a brand new unit. I ended up giving this away when I thought we were moving overseas.

I wouldn't buy it again myself, because I think it can totally be done without special equipment. Search youtube for the Good Eats episode on yogurt, or just the food network website for his recipe. That being said, I haven't done so.

But homemade yogurt is so much better than the store bought.

It's important not to use too much starter yogurt in each batch--I use 1 level tablespoon for each quart of milk. More than that crowds the bacillus and produces yogurt that's sour and watery.

Wow, I don't believe I said "piece of mind" instead of "peace of mind" up there. Obviously I only had a piece of my mind to work with - it was late, I was tired.

After reading this, I decided that I had to try making yogurt. I just put the first attempt in the fridge to chill. I tend to like the thicker Greek-style yogurt, so I might strain it tomorrow. So far, it looks okay and it tasted pretty good for being warm.