Today’s project took only a few minutes of prep and a couple hours of waiting, and produced this vat of white, yummy goodness! It’s yogurt 🙂
Again, Casey looked up all the details (this is what happens when I’m doing homework all the time and he’s bored!)
Here’s how we did it:
-Heated milk (about a quart) in a saucepan till it reached 185 degrees F.
-Meanwhile, let a half cup of yogurt sit outside the fridge to get warm.
-As soon as the milk hit 185, we removed it from the stove to cool to 110 degrees.
-As soon as the milk hit 110, we mixed in the yogurt (as well as a little vanilla pudding mix- extra for flavor, and for sugar for those bacteria to eat!)
-Then we poured the concoction in this jar, screwed the lid on tight, and put the whole jar in a crockpot set to the Warm setting.
-Then we filled the rest of the crockpot with warm water to create a warm, cozy bath for the yogurt.
-We checked the crockpot water intermittently (which for Casey meant every 10 minutes!) to make sure it was staying 110-120 degrees.
-At 5 hours, we took it out, and it was thick, curdle-y Yogurt!!
To get rid of the curdles we mixed it up well, then let it sit in the fridge to thicken.
Later when we tried it, it was a little watery (this is why people add dry milk powder to it!), so we poured it through a cheesecloth, aka T-shirt. 😉
We mixed some strawberry jam/sauce into it for extra flavor and it was delicious!
I liked the consistency and flavor better than store-bought, but that could just be me. It was milder tasting (less tangy) than the store-bought, but if we let it incubate longer, it would probably have been tangier. We will definitely be experimenting with this (Casey says another batch is due this week!) since it’s so easy, and also cheap… and let’s be honest, we’re a little obsessed with frugality. 😉