Homemade Yogurt

This is based on the procedures as written over on Kitchen Stewardship.

The type of milk you use helps determine not just the fat content, but also the quality of the finished product. I generally try to pick up an organic 2%. Katie over at Kitchen Stewardship gets in to a lot more deep of a discussion on the various milk options. I really suggest you give her stuff a read… but that said, her posts are a bit long. It was great starter information, but I wanted to post this here for my use as a way to have a quick reference for when I make it myself.

Being single, making a 1/2 gallon batch at a time works out well for me. You could even do just a quart at a time if you would like. Just depends on how fast you think you can go through what you make.

ingredients

1/2 gallon milk (not superhomoginized)
1/4 cup yogurt with active cultures

supplies

2 quart size glass jars with lids – I use canning jars, but old pickle jars or whatever you have can work.
digital probe thermometer – Katie uses a candy thermometer. I like the probe thermometer, it lets me monitor the incubation without opening the cooler.
cooler – large enough to hold your jars and pot of boiling water.
bath towel

directions

• pour milk in to jars, place in large pot with dishcloth in bottom, add milk partway up the side of the pot. Allow for space for boiling water. I use two, quart-size jars and typically have a cup of milk left over.
• It’s a good idea to run the jars and lids through wash/dry cycle to help sterilize them as much as possible
• Bring water to boil, with probe in the water (to sterilze)
• In the mean time, set another pot of water on to boil and take your starter yogurt out and let it get to room temp
• Place probe thermometer in one of the jars and bring to 180F
• I drape mine over a wooden spoon so it hangs in the jar, that way I do not get a false reading from the probe touching the glass of the jar

• You’ll know it’s nearly at temp when the milk develops a skin on it.

• Move pot with jars to sink and run cold water in to pot to cool off the milk to 110 degrees. Stir milk occasionally to help cool evenly
• Put pot of boiling water in cooler with lid on to start pre-warming the cooler
• Once milk is under 110, gently stir 2tbsp of the active yogurt starter in to each jar
• I’ve used a couple different yogurts for my starter, the key is to make sure you use something that has active cultures
• Once you’ve made a batch, you can use some of that for the starter for your next batch
• The ideal incubation temp seems to be 90-110, the lower you keep it though, the thicker the yogurt you seem to get
• Move jars to the cooler, wrapping in the towel, leave probe thermometer in jar. Take lid of pot of water in cooler

• Close cooler and let sit for at least 4 hours or up to 24 hours and monitor the temp
• If temp gets below 95, boil some water to replace the water in the pot in the cooler – this is where having a probe thermometer comes in handy as you can set a target temp for it and it will beep to alert you when it hits that temp
• I generally do my yogurt in the evening and it seems to stay in the incubation range just fine until I get up in the morning – this will vary depending on your cooler, starting temp and such though
• Katie recommends putting the yogurt in the freezer for an hour, then moving to the fridge – this is to improve the texture. I didn’t do this my last couple batches and haven’t noticed a huge difference
• Most of my yogurt I end up straining using a wire-mesh strainer and clean towel – this drains most of the whey out and gives a really thick yogurt
• I keep the whey that drains out and use it for making oatmeal or in other recipes and have sometimes mixed a little back in to the yogurt if I need it thinner for a specific application