We love yogurt and eat it often. I have been buying the 7-Star brand yogurt sweetened with real maple syrup. It is so good and so good for you. However, with all the milk that we have in this house, we need to be making our own. I have tried several different methods and gotten some great tasting, but VERY runny yogurt. People have told me to add powdered milk or gelatin, but I don't want extra junk in my yogurt. :) Also, most of the recipes you see say that you need to pasteurize your milk. I want to make a raw milk yogurt. If you want to leave all the wonderful enzymes in your yogurt, simply heat the milk to only 110 degrees. For each quart of milk use at least 2 Tbs. of yogurt for a starter. Please make sure that the yogurt you use has live cultures in it. You may also want to use plain yogurt for your starter. That way if you decide on a different flavor, you won't have to mask the first flavor.
Part of the problem was keeping the temperature consistent for 8 hours or more. I have tried putting it in a cooler with hot water, putting it in a thermos, etc. The only time I found I had a fairly consistent nice turn out, was in the winter when the wood cookstove was going. I had to do it in the morning and let it sit all day while the fire was going well. I would sit my yogurt on the cool end of the stove.
I have found the solution. After much research and reading, I have purchased the following.
It is inexpensive and does not have all the bells and whistles that some yogurt makers have, but it will keep the temperature consistent for the 8 hours I need. It also has individual glass jars, which will be great to send in Michael's lunch, or to grab on the go. I also like the fact that the jars are glass which makes them easy to clean. You can also do a different flavor in every jar if you wanted to. I was able to purchase it with Amazon gift cards that I won through my Swagbucks.
I installed the toolbar they offer and use it to search instead of other search engines. Since last summer, I have won twenty four $5 Amazon gift cards. If you sign up (please use the banner above) invite your friends to join under you. For every buck they earn, you get one too.
4 comments:
I struggled the same way with making yogurt. Then my son's girlfriend, who was born and raised in India came over and showed me how they made it all the time.
She brought some store-bought milk to a boil on the stove, then let it cool a little bit. Then she began cooling it more by pouring it from one pot to another for quite some time as we chatted.
When it was just warmish, she didn't take it's temperature, she stirred in a couple of tablespoons of my plain yogurt from the store. Then she wrapped the pot in a couple of towels, put it in the oven which she had warmed only slightly since it doesn't have a pilot light, and it stayed til morning.
The next day is was a little runny, but it tasted wonderful and we had it for breakfast.
I have been unable to duplicate it. LOL
It's just got to be one of those things that you get by practice til you get it. I have not got the time, milk, nor patience to keep failing.
Anyway, I don't see what you are talking about. Did you miss putting it in, or am I missing seeing it?
~Faith
Faith, by heating it up to boiling, you are pasteurizing it. I want mine raw. Also, this yogurt maker helps it not be so runny. There is a link in the post to the yogurt maker I bought. :)
Yes, I know. It was already pasteurized. I wish I had raw milk, but sadly, no such luck for us right now.
I'll look more closely for that link. :o)
~Faith
There it is! My browser must not be picking it up. I went to see the page source of your blog, did a search for 'following', figuring your link must have been right after it, and sure enough, there is a link there, but it is invisible to my browser.
Cool yogurt maker!
~Faith
Post a Comment