Yogurt Making Recipe
- General
- Ingredients - Metric
- Ingredients - American
- Directions - Water Bath Method
- Directions - Overnight Oven Method
- Options
- Tricks
General
Homemade yogurt is easy to make and has a richer taste than store bought yogurt plus as you know how it is made, you know it doesn't have all the additives found in most store bought yogurts such as viscosifiers, stabilizers, and artificial flavors. Some example manufactured yogurt viscosifiers (see pictures on bottom right) are:
- Gelatin (hydrolyzed form of collagen derived from inside animals' skin and bones).
- Pectin (extracted from plant, normal citrus fruits, cell walls).
- Agar-Agar (gelatinous substance derived from seaweed).
- Carrageenan (gelatinous substance derived from red seaweed).
- Corn Starch (starch derived from corn grains).
- Locust Bean Gum (a vegetable gum extracted from the seeds of the Carob tree).
- Tapioca (a starch extracted from the root of the Cassava plant).
To increase viscosity, most home yogurt makers use more expensive whole milk or add dry powdered milk or evaporated milk. However, as without the more viscosifying additives listed above, homemade yogurt is normally less viscous and when left in fridge will have a small amount of whey separation. This is normal, just stir back in or pour off the little whey.
The general process is to (re-)pasteurize the milk to kill off existing bacteria, and then in this fertile environment, add the ones (there are several) that make yogurt.
Ingredients - Metric
- 1 liter/1 US quart fresh milk of your choice.
- Optional Thickener: ~50 ml/2 ounces dry milk powder or some canned evaporated milk, amount varies depending on milk used and consistency desired.
- Starter Culture: 50 ml/2 ounces fresh unflavoured store bought yogurt with live cultures or manufactured freeze dried type yogurt culture.
Ingredients - American
- 1 liter/1 US quart fresh milk of your choice.
- Optional Thickener: ~50 ml/2 ounces dry milk powder or some canned evaporated milk, amount varies depending on milk used and consistency desired.
- Starter Culture: 50 ml/2 ounces fresh unflavored store bought yogurt with live cultures or manufactured freeze dried type yogurt culture.
Directions - Water Bath Method
- Pour milk into heavy bottomed saucepan or double boiler (as don't want to scald milk).
- If using thickener, stir in now.
- On stove/cooker heat to ~ 85°C/185°F, stirring to avoid hot spots.
- Turn off heat, cover, and allow milk to cool to at least 50°C/120°F (can accelerate cooling by placing saucepan in ice-cold water bath).
- To ensure thorough dilution of starter culture and thus thicker yogurt, dilute culture thoroughly in small bowl for 1 minute with some of milk using whisk before whisking thoroughly into milk for 1 minute.
- Pour mixture into sterile glass jars or plastic storage containers.
- Ripen mixture at 50°C/120°F (+/- 3°C/5°F) until desired viscosity/consistency (6-12 hours) by placing jars/containers in a warm water bath in either a large stockpot and maintaining temperature by placing it on a range's smallest ring on lowest setting or in soda/pop plastic picnic cooler and periodically replacing some of the cooler water with warm. Do not disturb/stir mixture while ripening.
- Use immediately or can be stored in household fridge for up to 1 month with lid on container.
Directions - Overnight Oven Method
This method is for most household ovens whose thermostat won't let them turn down to 50°C/120°F. It does not work if you have more modern style oven that has an automatic cool down fan when heating is turned off.
- Preheat oven to 175°C/350°F, then turn off.
- Combine milk and thickener if using, warm to ~ 50°C/120°F.
- To ensure thorough dilution of starter culture and thus thicker yogurt, dilute culture thoroughly in small bowl for 1 minute with some of milk using whisk before whisking thoroughly into milk for 1 minute.
- Pour mixture into sterile glass jar or casserole dish and cover with lid.
- Wrap container in thick towel and place in oven overnight. Do not disturb/stir mixture while ripening.
- In morning, unwrap and yogurt should be set. Note, if find not enough heat retained at end, next batch try leaving oven light bulb on to provide extra heating.
- Use immediately or can be stored in household fridge for up to 1 month with lid on container.
Directions - Yogurt Machine Method
Incubating culture at constant temperature for several hours via the above two methods is troublesome/labor intensive, if you make yogurt often, consider buying a low cost Yogurt "Making" Machine.
- Pour cold milk from fridge into machine's container.
- Place in center of microwave, zap on normal max setting until reach ~ 85°C/185°F (~5 1/2 minutes depending on microwave size and milk amount).
- Carefully move hot container to countertop, place lid on, allow to cool to ~ 50°C/120°F (about 100 minutes).
- To ensure thorough dilution of starter culture and thus thicker yogurt, dilute culture thoroughly in small bowl for 1 minute with some of milk using whisk before whisking thoroughly into milk for 1 minute.
- Place container with lid on in machine, place cover on machine, switch on.
- Ripen mixture until desired viscosity/consistency (6-12 hours). Do not disturb/stir mixture while ripening.
- Use immediately or can be stored in household fridge for up to 1 month with lid on container.
Options
- For thicker yogurt use whole milk and or add more milk powder.
- Add flavorings before incubating, some examples:
- Vanilla
- Sugar
- Add flavorings after making, some examples:
- Maple Syrup
- Crushed Nuts
- Fruits such as strawberry, peach, apricots, blueberries, bananas. If using fresh fruit, add when being served as the acids break down the yoghurt and can make it runny.
- Jam
Tricks & Traps
- Which ever system chosen, record method and temperature closely so that future batches can be made with less attention.
- Excess store bought plain active yogurt for starter can be frozen in ice cubes and then used later as required.
- Not all store bought plain active yogurts are equal, they have many different active ingredients resulting in many subtleties in flavor and health benefit, see pictures at bottom right, experiment!
- You can use some of your previous batch for next batches starter, however then purity of the bacterial strains will degrade over generations.
- Powdered cultures are generally stronger, than using store bought yogurt as a starter culture. They are available from health food stores, Cheese Making Supply Stores, and as very popular, from large online stores like Amazon USA.
- Heating milk too high will cause cream to separate.
- Curdled yogurt can be caused by adding starter culture to too hot milk.
- Common low viscosity (weak) or grainy yogurt causes are:
- Not thoroughly stirring in starter culture.
- Milk temperature too low when when starter added and/or during ripening.
- Weak starter culture.
- Adding starter when milk too hot.
- Vessels not sterile enough.
- Antibiotics in fresh raw milk can kill the starter. To mitigate, stand milk in fridge for 2 days to diminish before using.
- Bad tastes can be caused by:
- Too long incubating, resulting in too tangy - sour taste.
- Unclean containers, inducing unwanted bacteria.
- Over heated milk or hot spot when heating milk resulting in burnt taste.
