Homemade Yogurt
I have thought about homemade yogurt for a long time. Thought about it and done nothing. A few weeks ago I decided to stop just
thinking and I got out my crockpot (because I was told this was the easiest way
to do it) and…I made cheese. I took a
deep breath and went to make something else. Weeks later, I tried again with a
different method. This was easy and
perfect, needing nothing more than my stovetop and oven (which is good because
my crockpot has since cracked in half).
I am not sure I will ever buy yogurt again.
1 gallon milk
½ cup live cultured plain yogurt
½ cup live cultured plain yogurt
Pour 1 gallon of milk into a large stock pot and heat over
medium low heat until the milk is 180 F.
Kill the heat and let the milk cool down in the range of 115
F to 95 F. Add ½ cup of live cultured
yogurt to a bit of your cooled milk, mix until thoroughly combined and then mix
into the big batch of milk.
Pour into desired storage containers, either glass or
plastic works. I used a couple of large
yogurt containers that I had saved. Put
the soon to be yogurt into the oven (not on) and turn your oven light on. Let the yogurt sit in the oven with the light
on for 12 hours. Mine turned out a bit
mild for my taste, so I will test next time if letting is sit a little longer
will produce a more tangy product.
When the culturing time is finished, move your yogurt to the
refrigerator to cool.
Consume.
Want something a little thicker? Add 2-3 cups per gallon of
powdered milk to up the protein content.
This will make for a thicker yogurt.
Add the powder before you cook the milk.
I need to test and see if using whey protein works the same.
Like I said, the yogurt I made is not as tangy as I like so,
after further reading, I found out you can culture your yogurt up to 24 hours
to increase the tang. Also, if you let
it incubate at closure to 100F you will get better microbial growth.
I can’t wait to make the next batch.
Thank you for reading,
Sarah McTernen
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