So I was bored yesterday and decided to make some yogurt, from a sustainability stand point, once you have a batch going and you have a milk source, you can keep it going non stop
I had a gallon of milk left from the farm, and some yogurt left from the yogurt bread I made
so I dumped the milk into the double boiler
and stuck my candy thermometer into it
I turned the heat on low and slowly brought the milk up to 180 degrees
I immediately turned off the heat and set my thermometer into my crockpot
and poured the heated milk into it
I preheated the oven to 200
and after about 45 minutes the milk had cooled to 115 degrees
I took a half cup of warm milk and dumped a half cup of yogurt into it, you want to mkae sure your yogurt has live cultures in it
I mixed it well
and stirred it into the milk
I put the lid on the crockpot
and laid out two towels and set the crockpot in the middle
I wrapped the crockpot up tight
and turned off the oven and set the bundle of joy into the oven, all I wanted to do was get some ambient heat in the oven, you want to maintain a temp of 95-115 degrees in the milk to keep the milk warm for the 8-10 hours it takes to make yogurt. Another method is to turn the interior light on in the stove, it should keep the stove warm enough, or set a heating pad under the towels set on low, if you don't have a interior light
8.5 hours later I pulled the crockpot out of the oven
mmm, yogurt
I stuck it into the fridge over night to firm up
and enjoyed a nice cup of fresh probiotics for breakfast
I will strain it a little with coffee filters today and break it down into containers, saving a little as a starter for the next batch. Some people will just use the crockpot for the whole method, heating and cooling, some people say bringing the milk up to 180 to fast will leave to much of a sourness to the yogurt, but I don't mind it, another thing people will do is ladle the cooled milk/yogurt mixture into canning jars and set them in the oven so the milk turns to yogurt right in the jars and just stick them directly into the fridge, this creates a lot of yogurt which will have about a weeks shelf life, it can be frozen though. I'm going to mix some honey and dehydrated strawberries in some and freeze it for a late night snack, peace
So I set a coffee filter into my strainer
and filled it full of yogurt to drain the whey
I filled a quart jar with the extra, this will be my seed that I will use to start the next batch
I had set the strainer on a plate in the fridge for 3 hours,
I was running late for work, so i filled some more mason jars with the drained yogurt, I will mix and freeze later
I got probably 3 quarts and a pint total, but had been snacking on it a couple times, not to bad for the price of a gallon of milk, you can use store bought milk as well
27 Aug ’14
Thanks for the process! My wife loves greek yogurt and I'm doing what I can to pinch our budget now that she's working and I'm studying full time. Any problems with freezing it all and taking it out one bottle at a time? I figured 24 hours in the fridge should let it thaw sufficiently. When I pull the last bottle I'll just brew up another batch.
27 Aug ’14
Finally got around to trying this out in the oven. Definitely the simplified version but the results were delicious!
I heated 2 cups of whole milk (3%) to a light boil (no candy thermometer)
Poured it into a metal bowl and let it sit for 12 minutes (until it felt a little warmer than a hot tub, again, no thermometer)
Stirred in 1/3 cup of store bought greek yogurt
Started preheating the oven to 250 degrees and stopped it when the oven read 185
Put the bowl in and turned the oven light on
Pulled it out this morning and it was solid - Borrowed a meat thermometer from a neighbor and it registered 90F
Mixed it with some fresh passion fruit and delicious!
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