POW! Yogurt

If you know me in real life or even just on the internet, you will likely have heard me bragging lately about making my own yogurt. Enough people have asked me for instructions that I thought I’d get them typed up and posted here. You guys, I even took pictures for you.

Homemade yogurt is cheap to make and tastes, hands down, better than store bought. Really. REALLY. And contrary to what you may think, making yogurt is EASY. SO EASY.

Basically, it goes like this:

• Heat milk
• Cool milk
• Stir milk
• Keep milk warm
• POW! Yogurt

But I will give you a few more details, because details I have.

I decided to give making yogurt a try after realizing we were going to end up in the poorhouse based on the amount of money we were spending on Greek yogurt each week. I did some research, as I do, on yogurt makers but they’re all around $100 and on every review I read someone was screaming in the comments “YOU DO NOT NEED A MACHINE TO MAKE YOGURT!!!” and at first, yes, I thought those were just the hippies, but it turns out it really is dead easy and really, REALLY there is no need for a yogurt maker. All you need is:

• Milk
• A big pot
• A thermometer
• A few tablespoons of plain yogurt to use as a starter (you can use your homemade yogurt as a starter next time, so remember to save a little)
• A strainer*
• Cheesecloth/coffee filters*

*Optional

I had everything but the thermometer so my entire investment was a $7 thermometer I found at the grocery store (I believe it’s a drug thermometer because it says things like Hard Crack on it. Maybe it’s for candy. Not sure.)

I decided to give it one go and if it didn’t work out, I’d rethink investing in a yogurt maker but I was so, so pleased with my first batch I’ve started making it every Saturday – you do need to time things out jusssst right, so weekends are best for me.

I’ve always used a 4 litre jug of milk and it makes enough Greek style yogurt to last us a week – I eat it every day for breakfast, Andrew often does too, and I occasionally use some of it for dressings or sauces through the week as well.

Ingredients

• 4 litres milk (I’ve used skim and 2% and found little taste/texture difference between the two, see below re: straining)
• 3 or 4 tablespoons room temperature plain yogurt (I’m not sure if the “room temperature” thing is important or not but I read it somewhere and it’s worked for me so I take the starter out of the fridge when I start heating the milk and consider it “room temperature” by the time the milk has reached the right temperature).

That’s it. THAT’S IT! Can you believe it? (I didn’t.)  Here is a picture of milk in a pot. Exciting.

Preparation

• Dump the milk into a large pot
• Heat to 180F, stirring and gradually increasing heat to prevent burning
• Remove pot from heat
• Let the milk cool to about 115F (in my experience, this takes about an hour or so, with the lid off)
• Scoop about 2 cups of the warm milk into a bowl and whisk in your starter yogurt
• Whisk the 2 cups milk/starter mixture back into pot of warm milk

Put the lid on the pot, wrap a towel around it and stick it in the oven for 6 – 8 hours* with the oven OFF but the oven light on (I KNOW!)

ps, yes, do close the door. Photo above is for illustrative purposes only. Do not judge my dirty oven. Also pictured, the pink sticky note I tack on the front of the stove that says “Leave light on!” because Andrew is a light-turner-off’er extraordinaire.

*I read that the longer you leave the yogurt wrapped its warm little blanket home, the more of a “tart” yogurt you’ll get. I left mine for 6 the first time and it was NOT tart at all. The next time it ended up being around 7 hours and it had a teeeeeeny bit of tartness. I think 6 – 7 hours is my preferred window but govern yourself accordingly.

I like thick, Greek style yogurt so I also strain my yogurt but if you like it runnier, you can stop now. You’re done. You have MADE YOGURT. Well done, you! Please put it in the fridge now, unless you like eating warm yogurt (HOARF)(UNFOLLOW).

I have strained immediately after the steps above, but I’ve also left it until the next day to strain (the first time I made it I timed things incorrectly and had to set my alarm for 4:00 am on A WEEKEND to take my precious yogurt out of the oven and put it in the fridge. Yes I did.)

Line a strainer with unbleached coffee filters (I had some on hand from my pre-Keurig days)(or use cheesecloth) and spoon/pour it in. It does take quite a while to drain all the whey out – hours, in fact. And if you do it juuuust right, TULIPS will grow out of your yogurt.

I left it a little too long this time and ended up with (nearly!) cheese – but no biggie, just stir some whey back in.

I keep my yogurt in a big Tupperware container and stir thawed berries & granola into a bowl of it each morning, but you can flavour the whole thing too – I think you have to do that after the 6 – 8 hours if I remember correctly but you may want to google that – I didn’t want to make flavoured yogurt, so the details didn’t stick in my head.

SO GOOD!

Let me know if you decide to take a crack at making your own yogurt – you won’t be disappointed, I swear.

Good luck, hippies!