8 replies to this topic

[dondewey]

My wife eats a shit load of yogurt and I've been making it for a year. It is ridiculously easy:

Fill crock pot with whole milk and heat
At 180 turn off and set a container of yogurt out to warm up.
At 120, mix in the container of yogurt.
Cover with blankets and leave overnight.
Stick one of these in the crock pot: https://www.etsy.com...the-yogurt-tube
Every few hours ladle out the acid whey and chug.
When you've removed the amount of whey you want, put in containers and refrigerate.
That's it. Low mess, very low labor. Keeps for a month at least.

[porter]

Is the heating to 180 just to create the thermal mass to maintain heat overnight?

We used to make yogurt in mason jars and just put them in a cooler with a warm water bath overnight. We didn’t use a device like the yogurt tube to concentrate, so the yogurt was pretty thin - that is a cool idea, and I didn’t know it existed.

How much do you think you save vs buying the yogurt?

[Stains_not_here_man]

Heating, iirc, alters some proteins in some way, leading to thicker yogurt

[dondewey]

Is the heating to 180 just to create the thermal mass to maintain heat overnight?

We used to make yogurt in mason jars and just put them in a cooler with a warm water bath overnight. We didn’t use a device like the yogurt tube to concentrate, so the yogurt was pretty thin - that is a cool idea, and I didn’t know it existed.

How much do you think you save vs buying the yogurt?

I haven't bothered to look into why you heat to 180 first, just to then let it cool to 120. I assumed there was some sort of transformation/reaction happening, but I don't know.

We have been trying to eliminate plastic as much as possible, so we buy milk in glass and it's kind of pricey. Assume you remove 1/3 of the volume in whey (this is thicker than regular yogurt, not quite as thick as the really thick stuff), then the price is easy to calculate. 85 oz of yogurt for whatever a gallon of milk costs.

Last time they were out of whole, so I used a gallon of 2% and a qt of half and half. It turned out even better than normal.

I guess you can change the acid level by fermenting at different times and temps. 120 plus covering with two big moving blankets for 10 hours is pretty mild, imo.

The tube is key to making the whole process low-effort/low mess.

[dondewey]

I use one small glass container of Oui vanilla as the culture. I use new each time, but some people like to use a bit of the previous batch.

[Alan Thicker]

I should get into this, as we now eat a lot of yogurt 

[BrewerGeorge]

I should get into this, as we now eat a lot of yogurt

If they'll eat it, you can't beat making it yourself. I used to ferment a gallon of whole milk and strain it to Greek consistency, then add a 15oz can of peaches coarsely ground in the processor. You get about 20 individual servings for five or six bucks.

[Stains_not_here_man]

I've been making and drinking milk kefir for a few months now. There's no heat required but it's pretty much a daily process. I make and drink about a pint a day.

[dondewey]

1 1/3 gallons of milk converted to yogurt and 1/2 gallon of acid whey.

The whey doesn't have much nutrition, but it's nice tasting and has minerals and probiotics so I add to my breakfast shakes. This is pretty thick yogurt.

Edited by dondewey, 22 July 2024 - 02:52 PM.