A few days ago, my friend Molly (@VintageReader on Twitter) sent me links to some information about making homemade yogurt. I love plain yogurt. I eat it every day for breakfast and use it to make sauces and in baking, but the good stuff is expensive and since I recently lost my job I was looking for ways to cut back without resorting to eating crap food.
I read all the resources she sent me and I learned a few things about making yogurt.
- It’s super easy! Think about it – yogurt was invented (we think) by nomadic people who kept yaks, goats, etc. As with many things (yeast breads and cheese for example), it was probably discovered by accident when some milk came in contact with specific bacterial cultures. That this new food was also incredibly tasty and healthy was just a side benefit. So if nomadic people wandering the steppes could do, I was pretty sure I could too.
- You don’t need any fancy equipment. Although you can buy yogurt-making machines, as with so many kitchen gadgets (think bread machines, rice cookers, and popcorn poppers), you don’t really need an expensive gadget to make good yogurt.
- It’s cheap. All you need is a half-gallon of milk and 1-cup of commercial yogurt to get started. I was able to get milk on sale for $1 and used a scoop of Mountain High yogurt that I had in the fridge. You could also just buy a single-serve cup of yogurt to get started with. Just make sure that the yogurt you use has live cultures in it.
Science!
There are a few things to know about the science of making yogurt. I say “science”, but these are not complicated things.
- You probably will not get good results if you use ultra-pasteurized or low-fat milk. Whole milk seems to work best.
- You have to get the milk hot enough to kill off any existing bacteria that might compete with the yogurt cultures. This also prevents the proteins in the milk from clumping up into curds as it does in cottage cheese.
- You have to let the milk cool down before adding the yogurt so that the heat won’t kill the yogurt cultures.
- You want to let your yogurt “starter” come to room temperature before using it, as stirring in cold yogurt straight from the fridge will cause the milk to cool too much.
Ingredients
Recipe for Homemade Yogurt
- Half gallon of whole milk
- 1 cup yogurt
- Crock pot
- Candy thermometer
1) Set aside 1 cup of yogurt. (I used a bit more than a cup.) Let it come to room temperature while you do the following.
2) Pour the milk into the crock pot and set the crock pot to high. Cover it and let it heat until the milk is 180 degrees. This will take about 2-3 hours, depending on the crock pot and the temperature of the milk when you start. In my crock pot it took 2 hours, 40 minutes.
Hot milk
3) When the milk reaches 180 degrees, turn off the crock pot, take off the lid, and let the milk cool to 115 degrees, stirring it occasionally. Check about every 15 minutes to see if the milk is nearing the correct temperature. A skin may form on the milk, and you can either stir it in, or discard it. When the milk is nearing 115 degrees, preheat your oven to its lowest setting (mine will go to 170 degrees) and then turn it off and let it cool down. It took 50 minutes for my milk to cool in the crock pot, so that gave plenty of time to preheat and let the oven cool to no more than 115 degrees.
Checking the temperature
4) When the milk has reached 115 degrees, stir in the cup of room-temperature yogurt.
5) Cover the crock pot and wrap it in a thick towel. Put it in the oven with the pilot light on (if you have one) or with the oven light on. This will provide a small amount of steady warmth. Leave the yogurt in the oven for 8 to 12 hours, or overnight. Do not open the door.
6) The next morning, stir up the yogurt and scoop it into clean containers. You can also freeze it in small portions or just freeze a single 1-cup portion to use as starter on your next batch.
I put my yogurt in the oven around noon and retrieved it around 8:00 am today. When I opened the oven in the morning it was *very* warm in there! Who knew a tiny light bulb could throw off so much heat? I could smell the yogurt before I opened the oven door – kind of like how you can smell the yeast when baking bread. It was a wonderful smell! It meant it had worked and I wouldn’t just find a crock full of sour milk!
Here is what my yogurt looked like when I opened the crock pot. I’m not sure what that yellowish liquid is. It could be milk fat, or maybe whey (although whey usually has a bluish color). (Click the photos to make them larger.)
The finished yogurt!
And here is a spoonful of it to show the consistency.
I stirred the yogurt, which was very thin and slightly lumpy, then scooped it into containers and put it in the fridge.
Ready for the fridge
I did lick the spoon, and it was more acidic than I normally like – similar to store-bought low-fat yogurt. But the flavor may change after it has time to sit. From what I’ve read, I think it will firm up significantly if I leave it in the fridge overnight. I can’t wait to eat some!
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