Yogurt. Yoghurt. Yogourt.
However you want to spell it, it is a wonderful thing.
I want to teach you to make it. That’s right! You too can make a lush, thick, creamy yogurt in your own home.
Even my friends living in places where only watery “drinking yogurt” is available, you too can have the thick stuff again!
Here we go:
Equipment
Cooking Thermometer (At the least, you need to be able to read from from 60F to 180F. Here’s a good one from Taylor.)
Crock pot (or stainless steel, glass or non-chipped enamel pot)
Towel
Ingredients
Milk (raw, whole or even UHT shelf milk)
Some plain yogurt from the store that has live yogurt bacteria in it (Look for l.acidophilis or l.bulgaricus on the label – we were able to find this written in English on our Chinese brand yogurt.)
Directions
First, bring the milk to 180F (if you don’t have a thermometer, just heat the milk till it looks hot, not boiling), then shut off the heat. You can do this stove top or in a crockpot.
Let the milk cool to 116F. (If you don’t have a thermometer, wait till it cools until hot to the touch, but not scalding)
Add 1/2 to 1 cup the yogurt “starter” you got from the store. You’re just giving it enough bacteria to multiply. Yes, people, bacteria is the goodness of yogurt!
Cover your pot and wrap it completely with a couple towels to insulate it.
Let it sit for 6 hours. At the end (if the temperature stayed close to 116F), you should have a thick pot of yogurt. It will get even thicker after it’s refrigerated.
Alternate Recipe to make Probiotic Raw Milk Yogurt
If you happen to have access to raw milk (straight from the cow/goat/water buffalo), you can make this version of yogurt that preserves the benefits of raw milk. (Courtesy of Randolph Jonsson, www-raw-milk-facts.com):
“Heat the milk no hotter than 105°F rather than 116°F to preserve more bioactivity. If you think in terms of fevers during illness, 107°F is considered extremely dangerous to our brains, because that’s when proteins begin to denature. By staying a few degrees lower than that, you’ll preserve more of the 70-plus enzymes (enzymes are specialized proteins) that are typically present (dairy scientists say ‘indigenous’) in the milk.”
So, heat the raw milk to 105F (not 180F), add the starter and let it sit for 6 hours. The acidity of the yogurt bacteria will kill off any bad bacteria that may have gotten in the milk.
So you don’t transfer it into jars before you let it set??? Is there a reason? Just personal preference???
Do you flavor???
How do you get it that thick??????????????? Mine seems to always be a bit on the runny side. I’m not doing great in keeping a consistent consistency.
My yogurt starter is from the states and is ‘formulated’ for thicker yogurt so I’m guessing it’s a technique thing.
I liked the comment about using a non-chipped pot. “That’s funny”…says she who’s good pot is now chipped and is currently wondering what to do her yogurt in…
Storage: No particular reason we don’t transfer it to jars. Just less washing! Actually, we let it set in the crockpot, then transfer it to a couple cheap plastic containers which we put in the fridge. Then we feast on it until it’s nearly gone. The last cup I usually use as the starter for the next batch. If you look in our fridge I nearly always have yogurt in it.
Thickness: It’s all about temperature. Make sure you bring the milk up to 180F, which changes the milk enzymes and makes for a thicker yogurt. (Our probiotic yogurt always comes out runny because we don’t bring it up that high temperature first.)
We don’t put any flavor in the yogurt before we make it. I just make a plain yogurt and add fruit/muesli/etc as I eat it.
Let me know how it comes out!