Slow Cooker Yogurt

Making your own dairy products at home is a great first step towards a more self-sufficient life. Proteins have been increasing in price over the past five years and even if you can’t raise a meat animal you can still easily make cheese, yogurt and butter at home. Below is how you can make Greek slow cooker yogurt overnight while you are sleeping.

Ingredients

• 1 Gallon Milk
• 1/2 cup Greek yogurt (needed to start the culture)

Gather your supplies

Pour milk into a double boiler

Slowly heat to 180 degrees

Move thermometer to slow cooker

Pour milk into slow cooker

Preheat oven to 200

Allow milk to cool to 115 degrees

Mix 1/2 cup of warm milk and 1/2 cup of Greek yogurt

Mix it into the milk in slow cooker

Put lid on slow cooker and set on 2 towels

Wrap it tight in the towels

Turn the oven off and set the slow cooker into oven

8-10 hours later you have yogurt

Set in the fridge overnight to firm up

In the morning line a strainer with a coffee filter

Strain the yogurt

Separate into mason jars

You will get about 3.5 quarts of yogurt out of a gallon of milk and once you have the initial batch going you will never have to buy Greek yogurt again; just use your current batch to kick start the next one. Some people will just use the slow cooker for the whole process of heating and cooling but if you bring the milk up to 180 degrees too fast it can impart a stronger sour taste to the yogurt.

Another method is to ladle the cooled milk/yogurt mixture directly into canning jars and set them in the oven so the milk converts to yogurt right in the jars. I have had mixed results doing it like that but give it a shot and see if it works for you. This does create a lot of yogurt at one time which has about a week’s shelf life, so if you don’t eat a lot of yogurt you can freeze it for later usage. Now go make some slow cooker yogurt!

Homemade Living: Home Dairy with Ashley English: All You Need to Know to Make Cheese, Yogurt, Butter & More

Ashley English provides a feast of information for dairy-loving foodies! She guides readers through all the essentials in four topic-specific sections: Butter & Ghee, Cultured Dairy Products, Cheese, and Ice Cream. Each primer offers need-to-know facts with gorgeous photos, troubleshooting tips, profiles, and Ashley’s own roster of recipes.