Author Topic: Yogurt! Really??!  (Read 4041 times)

pamaples

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Yogurt! Really??!
« on: July 07, 2009, 03:07:29 AM »
Well, I used yogurt for a starter instead of cultured buttermilk, since I make yogurt anyway. So, I added the yogurt and in the morning I had, well, a gallon of yogurt!  :o  Does that mean I used too much?

I already had 5 pints of yogurt in the fridge, but not a total loss; I made yogurt cheese with green chili.

Offline DeejayDebi

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Re: Yogurt! Really??!
« Reply #1 on: July 07, 2009, 03:13:12 AM »
Well hon I'm sorry I am not understanding what you were trying to do here.  Were you trying to make cheese or a starter culture?

If you just add yougurt to milk and let it sit you will get more yougurt. Wonderful stuff those yogurt cultures!

Cheese Head

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Re: Yogurt! Really??!
« Reply #2 on: July 07, 2009, 10:57:56 AM »
Pam, you can use yogurt as a Thermophilic (high temp) Starter Culture, if making a recipe that calls high temp curd sets like moz or Swiss type cheeses. Conversely you can use Buttermilk as a Mesophilic (cool temp) Starter Culture for cooler cheeses.

zenith1

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Re: Yogurt! Really??!
« Reply #3 on: July 07, 2009, 07:10:49 PM »
Hi Pam-what were you trying to make by adding the yogurt to the 1 gallon of milk? See John's post in this thread for started culture help.

pamaples

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Re: Yogurt! Really??!
« Reply #4 on: July 07, 2009, 08:24:12 PM »
Ya, I was trying to use the yogurt as a starter for cheese. Actually just a way to get the acidity up so the rennet would work. I usually use homemade Mesophilic starter but was out. Dr. Frankhauser's cheese page suggests using 1/3 cup of yogurt to inoculate the milk. I didn't measure and used too much, I think. But the green chili labneh is good and makes great flautas.

And ya know, rennet will not set yogurt. (you probably did know that already!)

MrsKK

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Re: Yogurt! Really??!
« Reply #5 on: July 08, 2009, 05:29:17 PM »
I do much the same - either using yogurt or clabber to innoculate my milk (Yogurt as a thermophilic culture, clabber as mesophilic).

I learned quickly, though, that if I warmed my milk to anything higher than 65 degrees, the milk would thicken overnight.  Stick to 65 degrees before adding the culture and it should still be fluid milk the next morning - unless your house is really hot.  In that case, you might want to try to keep it somewhere cool.

pamaples

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Re: Yogurt! Really??!
« Reply #6 on: July 08, 2009, 06:34:33 PM »
Ah Ha! Thank you, room temp in my kitchen is 76 - 78 or so if I cook inside, which isn't bad for the desert (not using the evap cooler), But that explains why, 2 days later, it thickened again overnight using the buttermilk as usual. It only gets hotter here till October so, I could set it outside, covered and varmit proofed. It gets quite cool (65ish) at night.

Alternatively, do you think I could start in the morinig and just let it sit a five or six hours? I could throw some litmus paper at it to determine acidic pH.

MrsKK

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Re: Yogurt! Really??!
« Reply #7 on: July 09, 2009, 02:14:38 PM »
I would go with a shorter culturing period until your weather is cooler.  I do like the overnight thing, though, because then I'm not spending my entire day making cheese.

I've never measured pH myself.  But then again, I'm not looking to make cheese for sale or anything.  I just document how I did it so I can nearly reproduce it again in the future.

Good luck and let us know how the shorter culture time works for you.

BTW, what kind of cheese are you making?

pamaples

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Re: Yogurt! Really??!
« Reply #8 on: July 09, 2009, 03:44:19 PM »
Hi Karen,

Ia m making "cheese" from a gallon of milk. Until I can make a texture of this basic generic cheese that I like, well, I am not thrilled to move on and possibly waste a lot of good milk. That being said, I have made mozerella that came out well. See the link to the methods section of this forum to see the texture issue I am having.
http://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,1611.0.html
Hope that link works!

Pam

Offline DeejayDebi

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Re: Yogurt! Really??!
« Reply #9 on: July 11, 2009, 05:20:24 AM »
You might want to try using a cooler or styrofoam box to keep the cheese cooler. I have to do that sometimes in the summer when brewing beer.

Tea

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Re: Yogurt! Really??!
« Reply #10 on: July 12, 2009, 02:23:11 AM »
There is a recipe here for an Alpine cheese that uses yoghurt as the starter.  Add and leave overnight and makeup in the morning.