Does anyone know how to make yogurt?

[shandi]

I know it's pretty easy to make your own yogurt, can anyone please tell me how they do it?

My gf showed me how quite a long time ago, and I can't remember how he did it, plus he is now no longer with us :(

TIA!

[keegans_mommy]

We have a yogurt maker so I may not be much help.

We have to heat the milk up a bit and then add it to the yogurt maker and add yogurt starter to that. Put the lid on and turn it on and let it sit aaaaaaaaaaaaaaalllllll day long. When it is done, we add sweetener to it of some kind and the kids like to add whatever fruits they want to it when they eat it.

[rpg_mommy]

There is a great recipe for making your own yogurt in Super Baby Food by Ruth Yaron. It's a wonderful book full of all sorts of recipes for healthy homemade baby (and parent!) foods. I can look up her yogurt recipe when I get home and PM it to you.

I think you can get the book on Amazon for about $7. It's totally worth it if you like to do a lot of do-it-yourself, healthy cooking.

[WearingTaci]

I have never tried to make my own yogurt,but I make Kefir all the time. I've got the mother grains and it's so yummy and much better for you

[Julesmom23girls]

I am a foodnetwork fan, and I remember seeing it made there. I have never tried this so I can't say it works or is good but here is the link. HTH

http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,1977,FOOD_9936_19495,00.html

[FancifulFanny]

http://www.thefamilyhomestead.com/yogurt.htm

I have a yogurt maker, too but most of the time I just use the quart canning jar in the oven method. In the winter when the woodstove is going I just put the jar behind there to sit.

[shandi]

Great, thanks for the linkies mamas :)

[CheaperByTheDozen]

I want to know... if you can do it outside... when it is hot. You now... like 90 degrees?

[aschrimp]

You want it to stay between 100-130 degrees (or the yogurt culture won't grow). The best temp is about 120 degrees. If you are doing it outside in the heat, put your jars in a dark colored pot filled with hot water (enameled pot or whatever) and place in the sun, it should be fine. Once you've done a couple temp checks, if it seems to be staying in the desired range, you can probably just make sure it stays in the sun.

I used to make my own yogurt in quart jars just using other live culture yogurt as a starter all the time - it was SO much better than store bought! Can't now, as I can't eat dairy...

I never used a recipe. I actually got my instructions from some coworkers from india who make it all the time.

1) Scald the milk first (heat to about 185 degrees, until it steams, but do not let it boil) to kill any bacteria that is hanging around waiting for a chance to grow.

2) Let cool to 120 degrees (hot, but not too hot to dip your finger in), add a few spoonfulls of active culture yogurt from the store, mix well. Since you only need a few spoonfulls of this yogurt to culture from, buy the good stuff - a little individual sized pack of something organic and yummy sounding (I used greek yogurt, french yogurt, Brown Cow, and dannon all with good results). You can start your next batch off of your previous if you haven't kept it in the fridge for more than a couple weeks (best bet, if you plan to do this, is to keep a little jar just for your starter for the next batch, that way you don't risk bacteria from spoons getting in).

3) Pour into quart jars fresh from the dishwasher (you want them really clean, although I never sterilized them - I figured my dishwasher did an acceptable job, and never got sick, nor had my indian friends who have been making it this way for years).

4) Set the quart jars (with lids on loosely) into a pot of hot tap water (around that 120 degrees that you want to keep the yogurt).

5) Incubate: Either set in the oven (the pilot light kept it the perfect temp when we had a gas oven) or on the stove top where I'd check the temp every couple hours, and turn on a burner for a few min if it needed a boost. Outside in the sun in a dark colored pot ought to work just as well, like I said before, just check the temp to make sure it is staying warm enough.

You can adjust the incubation time based on how thick and/or sour you want the yogurt, and how warm your water bath stays. The longer it incubates, the more of the sweet lactose (milk sugar) the yogurt bacteria consumes, and the thicker and more sour it becomes. The cooler your water bath (down to that 100 degrees) the slower the bactiera will grow. So on a nice hot day, you might be done in 6 hrs. If you are just managing to keep it above 100, it might take a full 24. It will never be as thick as store bought yogurts, since most of them contain geletin to thicken.

I would eat it plain with fruit mixed in. Plain homemade yogurt is much less sour than storebought - it has a mild, creamy flavor, with just a hint of the typical store-bought sourness. It was perfect with sweet berries without any additional sugar.

Another really yummy thing to do with homemade yogurt is to make yogurt cheese - kind of in between yogurt and cream cheese. Place several layers of cheesecloth over the top of your jar, and flip it over in the sink (set on something so the liquid can drain out, like a colander or several jar rings). Let the whey (the clear liquid that seperates out of yogurt) drain out for several hours. The remaining yogurt will be less sour and thick enough to spread. If you add some salt, it tastes a lot like cream cheese. I especially liked it this way with honey (this is similar to a traditional greek yogurt).

[shandi]

Aschrimp, thanks so much for the great detailed instructions :thumbsup: