Yogurt... A Few Facts and Tips

Tired of yogurt?  I promise this is the last yogurt post for awhile...

The original recipe and process is here. But the process I use, quickly explained, is 

a) Heat milk slowly to 200 degrees. -Some people report that they have more problems with non-fat milk than with 2% or whole milk.

b) Cool the milk to 110 degrees, then stir in 2 Tbsp of prepared yogurt. (see below for more info)

c) Cover with plastic wrap and ferment in an oven set to Proof at 110 degrees for 4 or 5 hours.

d) Move the yogurt from oven to fridge, with as little disruption or jiggling as possible.  Let it set overnight.

e) Strain all day or overnight through cheesecloth or other light fabric to separate whey from what will now be Greek yogurt.  That process is was described yesterday (here).

Further tips and information I would've found useful as a first-time yogurt maker:

1) As you start warming the milk, remember to set out prepared, plain yogurt to come to room temperature.  Greek yogurt with no additives/thickeners is recommended... Either store-bought or homemade.  Use 2 to 3 tablespoons per quart of milk.  I read in some of my yogurt research that "more isn't better," so don't add extra, thinking it will help.  It may actually cause the yogurt to turn out thinner. 

2) IF you forget to set out the frozen or refrigerated yogurt to come to room temp, do it as soon as you remember, and spread it thin on a plate so that it warms up more quickly.  You can probably guess why I know this!

3) As soon as you make your own Greek yogurt (or with remaining store-bought yogurt referred to in #1), freeze

several 2 to 3 Tablespoon portions on a wax-paper-lined baking sheet.  Pop the frozen lumps off the wax paper and seal in a plastic bag to keep frozen for future batches of yogurt, at which time you'll use one 'blob' per quart of milk.  If the quality of your yogurt or its thickness begins to decrease after awhile of using homemade yogurt as ferment, start again with store-bought yogurt to keep the live bacteria culture at a good strength.

4) Start yogurt early in the day, or at least 7 or 8 hours before you want to go to bed.

In case you're wondering exactly how that 7 or 8 hours breaks down, and how long the whole process will take, here are the time stats from the creation of a recent batch:

• Time to bring one gallon of refrigerated milk to 200 degrees in 8 qt pan on medium low flame:  1 hour, 10 minutes
• Time to cool on stove (heat turned off) to 185 degrees: 15 minutes
• Time to cool in bowl to 110 for adding prepared yogurt:  1 hour, 20 minutes 

         So, total before oven fermenting:  2 hours, 45 minutes

• Time in oven to ferment: 4 to 5 hours 

• Time in fridge to finish fermenting and thickening: Overnight/ 8 to 12 hours
• Straining to make Greek yogurt on the 2nd day:  Overnight/ 12 to 24 hours, depending on consistency desired

My favorite yogurt breakfast or snack:
A squirt of Blue Agave Nectar, and a handful
of chopped almonds, or 1 Tbsp Almond Butter

5) You can flavor and sweeten the yogurt, and even put it in serving size containers before starting the oven fermentation step.  But since we use plain yogurt for a variety of things, I leave ours plain and add fruit, flavoring, and/or sweetener as we want to later.

6) Cost comparison:

2 quarts of Kirkland Greek yogurt from Costco:  $7

2 quarts of homemade from whole milk:  $2.50  

Monthly savings for Our Home for Ten:  over $40.  

7) The purchase of the thermometer that chimes at set waxing and waning temps (ThermoWorks EcoTemp Digital Alarm Thermometer) will decrease your initial savings, but for us, will be paid for in a month of yogurt savings.  It's worth it!!!

Yogurt Making Improvement #2

Yesterday, I shared about how the EcoTemp Digital Alarm Thermometer greatly improve my yogurt-making experience.  Now I thought I'd tell you about improving the actual yogurt. 


I have come to vastly prefer Greek yogurt to the thinner, 'regular' type, which is one reason I wasn't overly thrilled with the yogurt I'd made in my initial, though successful, attempt.


I knew that this time, I wanted to try to make it into Greek yogurt.  I'd read that the way to accomplish this is draining the yogurt through cheesecloth.  Cheesecloth doesn't seem to be stocked in any of the stores I frequent, so the lack of it delayed my 2nd yogurt attempt for weeks.  I finally decided to start the yogurt, then force myself to go find cheesecloth in order to finish.  But Hubby found a package out amongst his shop's wood finishing supplies, so I was good to go.  (Don't worry, it was new and sealed, so no finish or sawdust, and it listed food straining as one of its uses, so was certainly suitable.)

I would've liked to use a fine mesh strainer, but since I had a gallon of yogurt to strain, I got out my largest colander, also the one with the smallest and most plentiful holes.  I placed the colander in a tall bowl, and positioned an inverted cereal bowl underneath, to keep the strained yogurt from sitting in the drained liquid whey.  

I cut a piece of cheesecloth long enough to go down into the colander and hang over both sides, so it wouldn't slip in... I opened it out to fit, and ended up with 2 layers.  Then I spooned in the yogurt.  I covered it with plastic wrap and set it in the fridge overnight.  (I had to remove a shelf from the fridge, because this contraption ended up to be so tall!)


OK... THEN I started to wonder if I'd done this at all right, and looked for instructions on the internet.  First of all, almost every site said I was supposed to use 'several layers' of cheesecloth.  2 sure doesn't qualify as several, so I figured I'd awaken to a milky drainage, instead of clear, and have to start over.  Most people seemed to recommend tying the cheesecloth over the top of the yogurt, and even hanging it from a cabinet knob to help squeeze out the whey.  But one person suggested doing it the way I had... Just covering it and setting it on a fridge shelf, so I stuck with that and hoped for the best.


I also found that, as I'd wondered, I could've tried other fabric for the straining, like a broadcloth or muslin.  It's just recommended that one avoid colored fabric in case it bleeds into the yogurt, since blue yogurt wouldn't be very appetizing...

The next morning I was delightfully surprised to see that neither the storing and covering methods, or the conservative use of cheesecloth had been at all a problem.  I had about half the amount of yogurt, which according to what I'd read, was the expected.  I also had about 6 cups of liquid whey...clear and yellowish, as it's supposed to be.

The whey is supposed to be wonderful in baking... as a one to one swap with whatever liquid might be in muffins, bread, etc.  I tried it in my bread recipe, but instead of extra pop, as described by other whey-users, my bread didn't rise as much as usual, and got a little overbrown in the time it took to bake to its 200-degree internal temperature.  There are too many factors that influence this to blame the whey, so I'll have to try again another time.  Making at least 2 batches of yogurt a week, which is what it will take to keep our yogurt supply going, will give me plenty of whey to play with.               


Strained longer, I can make "yogurt cheese," which is supposed to be like cream cheese.  I think I may also be able to make Ricotta cheese using some of these same techniques and ingredients, so I hope to try that, too.

                                                                                                                                                                                    

Yogurt Making, Improved!

When I last made yogurt, I said it'd be SO much easier, if I didn't have to keep running back and forth, trying to catch the milk as it rose, then cooled to specific temperatures... and that a thermometer with alarms for both heating and cooling would be ideal.  

Well, a conscientious and kind reader remembered that wish and sent me a link to ThermoWorks' EcoTemp Alarm Thermometer.  


At $39, I felt it was an affordable convenience for something I intend to use consistently and often.  I added a few accessories... a clip so it can hold onto the sides of pans and bowls, a protective cover, and an additional probe that allow it to be used in my probeless bottom oven.  So my overall price was about $65.  I've used it SO many times in the several weeks I've had it, and I just finally used it to make yogurt again this past week.


In making yogurt (using the same recipe and methods as the first time), it's the first time I've tried setting the alarm or using the clip.  


Either I'm not setting it up right, or the clip is a bit flimsy and awkward, but it does the job.  


The alarms, though, were WONDERFUL.  There weren't any directions for using it, but I found setting it to be pretty easy to figure out.  








I set the high temp for 200 as the milk warmed slowly, on a medium-low flame.  Heating the milk not only allows it to ferment in a reasonable amount of time, but taking it past 185 will denature the proteins and it will be thicker.











When the milk was transferred to a bowl to cool, I set the alarm for 112, so I had time to get there and cover the bowl for transfer to the oven, without it getting cooler than the 110 degree fermenting temperature.  














Then, as before, it went into the oven, set on Proof at 110 degrees, and stayed there for hours.  Since I used a gallon of milk and I didn't know if the quantity in the bowl needed more time, I left it to ferment for about 8 hours this time, before carefully transferring it to the fridge for an overnight sit... instead of 4 to 5 hours in the oven like last time.




I think that made it a little more sour, and I won't leave it that long next time.  But there will definitely be a next time, because this thermometer made the job easier and more certain.  

Bucket List Item: Making Yogurt

We go through yogurt quickly.  In fact, I start almost every morning eating a mixture of plain and honey Greek yogurt that Hubby is wonderful about bringing to me before I get up.  (I have had issues with low morning blood sugar, and find that the earlier I eat something with protein in it, the more likely I am to avoid the annoying problems.)  So, I keep buying it ...at $4 per quart.  It was past time to try making our own, since a gallon of milk would give us 4 quarts for the same price or less...and it sounded like more fun to make it than buy it, anyway.  The kids kept asking when 'we' were going to do it.  (Apparently, their part in this was to make sandwiches and keep me company as I worked, but that's OK.)


First I had to find directions.  An internet search gave me too many results with varying instructions, so I went to what I consider the most credible cooking advice source, the Gardenweb Cooking Forum.  Sure enough, I found just what I needed in a discussion entitled Yogurt Making Question.  Lots of helpful advice and information there, but Grainlady's simplified instructions spoke clearly to me and made me believe I could do this.
I decided to try making 2 quarts.


Equipment:  
4 quart Saucepan
Candy thermometer
2 quart Measuring pitcher and 1/4 cup measure
Oven with Proof mode for yogurt incubation  

Any oven that can be otherwise set to a temp between 105 and 120 should work.  Some people use heating pads, lamps, or crockpots to keep their yogurt at the incubation temperature range.


Ingredients:
2 quarts Whole Milk (You can use lower fat milk, but whole is supposed to make a thicker yogurt, so sounded easier.  I'm not a fan of lower fat dairy products anyway.)
6 Tablespoons (3 per quart of milk) Plain Yogurt with active cultures (the more, the better) and no additives.  Greek-style is recommended.
- Oops.  My Greek yogurt has pectin added, so we'll see how it works.- 

First, I set out 6 Tablespoons of the Greek yogurt to come to room temperature.  Grainlady recommended freezing 3 Tablespoon portions for future batches of yogurt, so I scooped 3 Tablespoon-sized blobs onto wax paper and popped them in the freezer.  (When I discovered that yogurt had pectin in it, I popped them back out and returned them to the container to use, as usual, and wait for a purer quality yogurt to save for yogurt culture.  Stonyfield Farm is the brand she recommends.)                          

I set my oven to Proof and adjusted the temperature to 110 degrees.  In hindsight, this was way sooner than necessary, since it reached that temperature in just a few minutes. Oh, well.                                                                                        
I heated the milk over medium heat in the saucepan with the thermometer suspended in the middle of the milk.  Using a heat-resistant spatula, I swirled the milk around every few minutes to keep it heating evenly.  I needed it to get to 190 to 210 degrees.  I wasn't sure what to do about the skin that formed in the latter stages of heating.  Most I removed as I stirred.                                                                                           
It took approximately 30 to 40 minutes to get the milk to 200 degrees.  I let it heat slowly, especially after reaching 185, because the FAQ page of MakeYourOwnYogurt.com said that the longer it stayed in that temperature range the more the proteins were denatured, which would result in a thicker yogurt.  For that same reason, once the milk got to 200 degrees, I turned off the flame but left the pan on the burner until the milk slowly cooled to below 185 degrees.

I transferred the milk to the bowl in which I wanted to incubate the yogurt.  I attached the thermometer to the side and waited approximately 35 to 40 minutes for it to cool to 110 degrees.  Anything between 110 and 115 would be all right, but Grainlady said the yogurt would be milder at 110 and tarted at 155...and being a yogurt wimp, I waited for 110.  This would've been a more appropriate time to preheat the oven.  

digital candy thermometer

Next time I make this, I want to have a digital candy thermometer that will sound an alarm when the temperature is reached, so I don't have to remember to run back and forth to check, and risk missing the right window of opportunity.                                                                                                                                             
As soon as the thermometer read 110, I stirred in the waiting yogurt.  I used a whisk and went ahead and removed the skin which had formed, since it only interfered with stirring...and it seemed gross to drag it through the rest.                                                                                     
I covered it with plastic wrap and placed it on the glide rack in the oven.  Since, according to Grainlady, yogurt responds negatively to jiggling, I wanted the rack that would slide out the farthest and smoothest when I remove the bowl from the oven in 4 or more hours....                            

5 Hours Later (I wasn't home at the 4-hour mark, so it fermented an hour longer than Grainlady said it needed to.  If it's too sour, I might know this is part of the reason.):  So far, so good.  I'm not supposed to shake it around, but I can tell it's thickened.  The top looks a little bubbly and like maybe there are some curds formed under the surface.  I moved it straight to the fridge, where I'm supposed to leave it alone for at least 3 hours to finish.  
I think it worked!!

Follow up tip:  After leaving the yogurt in the fridge for several hours to fully set up, strain it through a towel or a few layers of cheesecloth (I suspend a colander lined in the cloth over a large pot) for 6 or 8 hours, or overnight.  The drained liquid can be used in bread...What you have left is some wonderful Greek yogurt!

After 3 hours in the fridge...Voila'!  Looks and tastes just like yogurt!  :-)