Recipe - Yogurt #1

[Cheese Head]

Yogurt Making Recipe

[whuebl]

Normally I do not like to reply to posts this old. Since I am way much older, that should not be a problem?

Why I think it is appropriate to reply to this post is that the post was found early in a search for yogurt recipes. There is certain material in it which needs either correcting or further explanation. So here goes - I am addressing especially the Yogurt Machine Method (Instead of trying to rebut the original post point-by-point, I am giving our own method instead - and you can find more at http://mryogurt.info/ ):

1.  Our thickener of choice is a cup of dry, powdered skim milk per liquid quart of milk - whole is the tastiest, in our humble opinion. With this amount, the resulting yogurt is every bit as thick is most yogurts you can buy and that is without straining. We usually place 3 - 4 quarts of whole milk in a crock pot with dry milk, a 50 - 50 mix of sugar and Splenda and a pinch of salt for the batch. We heat it to near boiling (190F) - doesn't hurt to boil it unless you are using other than cows' milk. We just let it go overnight.

2. Then we pour the hot milk into the containers we use for holding the resulting yogurt. This does 2 things, it sterilizes the containers and it makes sure we have the right quantity and size containers for the batch.

3. Next we pour the milk from the containers into a large soup pot set in a dishpan of cool water in our sink. You may want to give the milk a stir or 3 until the milk cools to 110F or so.

4. In our larger sized Ninja Food Prep container, we pour some of the cooled milk and add the culture - usually Activia or a combination of cultures with Activia in it. A couple of tablespoons will do and as much as a cup of culture can be added.  Blend the culture into the milk for 5 - 10 seconds.  It is very important you blend, not stir, the culture into the milk as you are trying to distribute billions of bacteria throughout the warm milk.

5. Pour back into the soup pot and stir and then poue into the containers for culturing.

6. Place the containers into the yogurt maker - we have a Waring Pro yogurt maker with we have adapted to make a gallon or more at a time by simply covering the top with a towel to close the gap between the top and the base. We then turn on the machine.

7. It takes less than 2 hours for the culture to firm up - and you can wait up to 24 hours if you want a really tangy yogurt.

8. Once firm, place the containers in your fridge and allow them to cool for several hours or better yet, overnight.

You can see the difference in methods and we believe ours is better because it creates a firm, sweet yogurt in less time.






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