Tuesday, January 6, 2009

I Guess It's A Phase

This past weekend I decided to make yogurt. That's right... yogurt. I guess I'm going through a phase. I decided that I want to learn how to make all of these things that I take advantage of in the grocery store. SOMEONE has to make all of these things that we consume so I thought that if they could do it, there was no reason that I couldn't, right?

On to how I made homemade yogurt.

I put the following into a large saucepan:

4c. whole milk
1/2 c. dry milk

Stir to dissolve dry milk powder and slowly heat milk to 180 degrees. You do this to kill off the bacteria that prevents the milk from firming up. Turn off the heat and let milk sit at room temperature until it is between 110 and 120 degrees. Take a ladle full of milk and add it to 1/4 - 1/2 c. of plain yogurt WITH ACTIVE CULTURES. I used plain Fage greek yogurt. Whisk together and then whisk the mixture into the warm milk.

Now you put the mix into the containers that the yogurt will be processing in. I used glass mason jars. There are several ways to let the mixture process, but i used my crockpot. I poured my yogurt into my mason jars and put them into a preheated (on the "warm" setting) water bath in the crockpot and put the lid on. Every couple of hours I would turn my crockpot on and off to try and keep my crock pot at about 110 degrees. In about 6-8 hours my yogurt had firmed up and I put the jars in the fridge to chill overnight. Now I have yogurt! This morning I drizzled it with a little bit of wildflower honey and it is GOOD!


Try it, you'll like it!


Tomorrow I'll tell you how I used some of my yogurt to make yogurt cheese.


1 comments:

Leesa Dee said...

I have made yogurt at home, using a similar method as yours except I used my microwave which has a temperature probe. I did that for several months when money was rather tight but I just buy it now. I like homemade yogurt better but I just don't want to take the time to make it.

About making your own butter, I can remember my mom making butter the same way, with the mixer and then pressing and kneading the buttermilk out.
I've never tried it myself, though. Mom's a better and more adventurous cook than I am. Plus I'm lazy.