Yogurt Making, John's #13 - Yogurt Machine Method, With Powdered Milk

[Cheese Head]

Just back home in Houston TX after trip to Vancouver, Canada, 6PM here and 105F/40C outside, hot hot hot!

After 18 months eating store bought mass manufactured yogurt I'm finally making it again so I can live healthier. Made this batch using my Salton Brand Model YM-9 Electric Yogurt Making Machine and Wiki: Yogurt Making Recipe:

RECORDS

• Aug 28, 2011, 5:50PM: Dumped 2 tablespoons of nonfat cow's milk powder as thickener into clear plastic after market container, filled with store bought 2% pasteurized homogenized cow's milk from jug in fridge to 1 litre level mark. Stirred with spoon to dissolve milk powder, placed in microwave, zapped for 6 minutes to denature milk, had to stir once to even out temperature as top starting to boil/foam over. Measured at 187 F/86 C, left container on countertop without lid to cool.
• Aug 28, 2011, 8:00PM: Checked, milk at 98 F, added 1/2 package of almost 2 year old (to me) manufactured freeze dried yogurt culture, stirred with spoon up and down for 1 minute to distibute, placed container in machine and lid on machine to ferment and set dial to 8 as reminder when started fermentation.
• Aug 29, 2011, 700AM: Unplugged machine after 11 hours fermenting, checked consistency, good, no whey on top, placed in fridge to mature.
• Aug 29, 2011, 5:00PM: Checked consistancy after 10 hours in kitchen fridge, thicker, checked taste, quite tart, little too sour for my preference.

NOTES

• Next time when microwaving, stir after 3 minutes.
• Next time use less powdered starter or ferment for less time.

[Gürkan Yeniçeri]

I usually add 100g of full fat milk powder (skim powder doesn't give enough body I think) to 1 litre of UHT milk, mix it well add the culture and put in the machine from night. No heating, no scalding. In the morning, it goes into the fridge. Recently, I also started adding 2 tbsp kefir along with the culture and the acidity was just perfect.

I experimented with topiaca flour but didn't like to add "heating step" to my already busy schedule.

Oh BTW, I have the exact same machine but different brand. I also add water into the container to create a water jacket around the yogurt cup. Water is a better heat transmitter than air.

[Cheese Head]

Hi Gurkan, yep understand that with UHT you can skip the cook and denature step, but here UHT is rare and thus about 3X the price of regular store bought P&H cow milk. That said I'll but a liter/quart and give it a try.

My wife bought the non-fat powdered milk, once that's gone I'll try the whole dry milk, or I could also buy whole rather than 2% milk.

On using water around container, good idea except I assumed my/our unit did not have a thermostat, but just a dumb heater so if added water it wouldn;t go or stay at correct temp.

Cut the grass, at 102F tonight, wow.

Cheers!

[Gürkan Yeniçeri]

With the water around it, I was checking the temp and it was 42C/107.6F constant. You might be right about no thermostat.

I didn't check the temp without the water jacket though.