Homemade yogurt -- my second attempt
yesterday i did this: heated a quart of lowfat goat milk until it foamed, let it sit until i could stick a finger in it for ten seconds, whisked in a tablespoon of fage 2%, then poured it into two pint mason jars {if you're a mountain gringo salsa user like me, their mason jars are perfect for yogurt making, except for an unfortunate tendency for the lids to continue to smell fire roasted despite numerous washings}.
i wrapped them in a towel and stuck them in the oven. when i got home at about 11:30 last night, i checked on them. they had cooled off completely and were still liquidy. i put them in a pan of water with the heat on low, then forgot about them for an hour or so. when i remembered them, they had completely separated -- what i had looked like gelatinous curds floating in a huge amount of whey. i left them on the counter to cool and forgot about them once again. this morning when i walked into the kitchen, i opened one and tasted it. it was actually pretty good. i drained off all the whey and froze it, thinking i could use it in bread making sometime. what's left is delicately flavored, just the right amount of tangy, and a little goaty.
i'm considering taking it a step further and draining it through some cheesecloth, but i'm feeling lazy this morning.
anyway, i may just break down and do what alton brown suggested with the heating pad. i had thought about tucking them among the layers of foam mattresses on my bed while they incubated, but that felt too silly.
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23 Comments:
Save yourself a lot of work. A Donvier yogurt machine is one of the best inventions on the planet. A no-brainer...perfect yogurt anyway you like it! Check out amazon.
I got 2 sets of cups, so I never run out. Some things are not worth stressing over!
pthom at 12:00PM on 08/03/08
I am watching your progress with great interest as I have always wanted to make yogurt. I am now thinking of buying a yogurt machine as all the process seems really complicated. I hope attempt 3 is a success!
love2cook at 12:12PM on 08/03/08
I have NO connection with Donvier...just use their product.
Easy as pie. Have a 4-cup microwave-safe measuring cup.
Heat the milk to 185 or so....use their spoon it'll tell you when.
Cool down to where the spoon tells you.
Add some "starter." I use Dannon plain.
Pour into cups. Plug in machine. Let cook for as long as you like (I like 15 hrs for tart).
Refrig. Done!
pthom at 12:23PM on 08/03/08
I agree with the others. The yogurt machine does make it seem so much easier. It needn't be a Donvier. I have the one from Williams-Sonoma. Love the glass jars. A thermometer is also a good tool to have around for yogurt making.
izzy's mama at 2:10PM on 08/03/08
I have my first batch incubating right now! I I asked for a yogurt maker for my birthday (making without seemed daunting, making with seemed pretty foolproof). I cannot get myself to like plain yogurt so I sweetened mine. I used 4 cups organic fat free milk, 1/3 cup powdered milk, about 1/4 cup sugar, 2 tsp vanilla and organic Stoneyfield Farm yogurt as my starter. I tried to make my amounts an educated guess based on recipes I found online. My maker came with freeze dried starter, I'll try that next time. I am eagerly awaiting my results, hopefully it won't take too many tries to find a "recipe" I really like. I am enjoying watching your progress!
mrsmoosie at 3:11PM on 08/03/08
I've used health food store probiotic capsules with a dozen or more cultures to make yogurt. Legally, the only cultures required to call something yogurt are L. bulgaricus and S. thermophilus (but many companies also use Bifidobacterium Longum). Sometimes the probiotic yogurt with over a dozen strains is great...sometimes....it is odd....(as in slimey)...have to watch the temperature too as some cultures thrive at a temp that kills others.
DavidinCT at 3:29PM on 08/03/08
I'm waiting on my yogurt maker now, i thought about trying it without, but i dont trust myself lol besides if i put a heating pad on the counter with yogurt, the cats would take that as an invitation to their 2 favortie activities, destruction and napping in a warm spot. ;-)
huneybumper at 5:17PM on 08/03/08
Easy method: Pour a quart of milk into a glass container. Heat in microwave till almost boiling - take out and cool till the temp of a baby bottle.
Stir in a dollop of yogurt. Cover container and place on top of cable television box overnight.
Perfetto. Nice thick yogurt in the morning.
Easy peasy.
Just be sure that the top is secure on the container in case you get crazy and knock it over onto the cable box.
foodvox at 6:36PM on 08/03/08
mrsmoosie...DON'T sweeten your yogurt before you make it!!!
I can't emphasize that enough!!
If you actually need fruit, sugar, etc., add them AFTER the yogurt is made.
pthom at 7:15PM on 08/03/08
Well, hmmm...here's a coincidence. I just tried a little yogurt experiment here.
The previous attempts went like this: First batch of yogurt I made, I added powdered milk as the recipe suggested, and it came out good. Next time, I made it with too much powdered milk, and I wasn't all that pleased. But it was my fault. Next time, I made it with no powdered milk, just the milk and the yogurt from a previous batch. That came out good. I decided to strain that batch to make it thick like a Greek yogurt, and I actually let it sit long enough so that it was pretty much like a spreadable cream cheese. Oh, yum, that was food. The leftover whey I used in bread, so it's not like that was a waste, but I did end up with a lot less yogurt after the straining.
So...I decided to try an experiment. 3 quarts of milk, 3 quart-sized jars. Into one jar went 1/4 cup of powdered milk. Into a second jar went a small can of condensed milk. Third jar was just for the milk-yogurt combo.
Heated the milk, added the yogurt, poured into jars, mixing the ones that needed to be mixed, and left them in the 105 degree oven for about 12 hours.
Next comes some straining and taste testing. Why the condensed milk? I dunno. I figured it might add more body and yield more yogurt after straining, like powdered milk does.
After I do some taste-testing, I'll see which one is the best choice. Then I think I might be making some frozen yogurt.
dbcurrie at 1:57AM on 08/04/08
Another vote for the machine. I use the Eurocuisine brand available at SLT. Although, I must admit that I would love to be able to make quart jars instead of the 7 oz ones.
jdmcdonald at 11:35AM on 08/04/08
I tried making yogurt last week. 1/2 gallon of organic 2% milk, heated to 180 degrees, a heaping tablespoon of Stonyfield Farms 1% - tempered with the hot milk, and 10 hours in a covered pot in the oven (oven was off).
I ended up with milk that smelled like yogurt. Not even strainable.
Not sure what I did wrong.
Kerosena at 11:59AM on 08/04/08
@Kerosena, did you let the milk cool down adequately before adding the yogurt? It's got to get down to near the 110 degree mark or the heat will kill the yogurt culture -- or at least that's what I've read.
dbcurrie at 1:42PM on 08/04/08
Nope, I was not aware of that step. I'll try it next time 'round. Thanks!
Kerosena at 2:22PM on 08/04/08
Also did you have the oven light on? that warms things up a little to help
PeanutButter at 2:27PM on 08/04/08
The idea of placing the yogurt in the oven overnight came from past history when there used to be mostly gas ovens - the pilot light (which was an open gas flame near the bottom of the oven) which was always on provided a great place to make yogurt as well as to rise bread.
foodvox at 3:52PM on 08/04/08
@foodvox, mine goes into the oven because I've got ultra-low temp settings specifically for proofing bread (two predetermined settings) and for drying foods (variable temperature settings), I set my oven temp to 105 degrees so I could keep the yogurt at a relatively consistent temp for the whole time, and so far it's been working really well. An oven without the low settings would probably be fine with the light on. I've done that for proofing bread (before this oven) and it does stay warmer than room temp. Otherwise any warmish spot would probably be fine, but sometimes it's difficult to find such a spot where the temp doesn't fluctuate a lot over the course of the 8-15 hours the yogurt might need.
dbcurrie at 5:29PM on 08/04/08
Your oven sounds like a great thing, dbcurrie. :) I agree with you that any warmish spot would be fine . . . but having done both bread and yogurt in electric ovens with only the light on (and having gotten vaguely exasperated at the results which are not reliable in general) my choice would still be the top of the cable box.
It feels so good to make use of all that excess unused energy, too - that cable boxes constantly give off.
Hmmm. Maybe an under-laptop clip-on thingie could be invented for making yogurt and rising bread . . .
foodvox at 7:44PM on 08/04/08
something that worked pretty well last time was immersing the jars in warm water and then insulating the kettle. the yogurt set up beautifully that way, but tasted nasty due to the powdered milk.
cybercita at 8:17PM on 08/04/08
@foodvox, I adore my new oven. I was dancing a jig when the old one died :-)
Good thing, too, because I don't have a cable box. I was actually wandering around the house looking for a spot that would stay fairly consistently warm, and where it wouldn't get too hot and kill the yogurt, and where I wanted to park a couple jars of yogurt for 12 hours, and there wasn't much that was promising. And then I thought of the oven. It's still new. I'm not used to all of what it can do. Like get warm and keep a consistent temperature.
Some of the instructions I read suggested turning the oven on and off to keep the heat up, but that seems rather inconvenient, particularly if this is an overnight project.
dbcurrie at 8:57PM on 08/04/08
@pthom
Why sweeten only after making the yogurt? It seems like if I tried to add some sugar after it was made it would end up kind of grainy? I tried mine today and it came out pretty good, but I do want to get the best possible method. Maybe I would be surprised and not need the sweetener after all? What if I just wanted to add some vanilla (or I had the thought of adding some nutmeg) before or after? Thanks for any advice, I'd love to like "plain" yogurt but just can't do it.
mrsmoosie at 9:18PM on 08/04/08
Mrs. Moosie
the last time I made homemade yogurt, I actually added pie filling to it right before I put it in the refrigerator...you know, kinda like the Dannon...fresh fruit on the bottom stuff..It turned out pretty good...got kinda watery when I tried adding jam to it, though...
BethDuPay at 9:30PM on 08/04/08
@Mrsmoose, until I tried Fage Greek yogurt, I wasn't very fond of eating most plain yogurts, either. They were fine in recipes or mixed with something (when I did the mixing), but eating a cup of it plain -- not really. And there were very few flavored ones that I liked. And I never found one with fruit mixed in that I liked at all.
Then I learned about Fage, and that stuff is good, just plain.
Now that I've tried my hand at making my own yogurt, it's getting even more interesting. From what I've read so far, the yogurt gets tangier the longer you let it ferment, so you can control that part of it. And based on my recent experiments, it seems that you get a much different texture if you add powdered milk (or not) to the milk, so you can fiddle with textures. And since I like the thicker Greek style yogurt, I've been straining mine. Leave it long enough, and you can end up with something that's a lot like cream cheese.
Anyway, as far as sweetening, you could get away from the grittyness if you added honey or simple syrup instead of granulated sugar aftewards. Or, for a flavored yogurt, add jam or jelly or a flavored syrup.
dbcurrie at 11:22PM on 08/04/08