You need:
- 1 litre (2-1/4 pints) of full-fat milk (raw is best)
- 2 to 3 tablespoons yogurt (room temperature) mixed with a few tablespoons of milk
- thermometer
Bring milk to just under boiling point and then pour the milk into a glass or earthenware dish. Let the milk cool to about 42°C/104°F. Pour the yogurt/milk mixture into the milk carefully without disturbing the skin that may have formed on the surface of the milk. Cover with a cloth, place in a warm, draft-free place for 8 to 12 hours or overnight, and do not disturb it until the yoghurt thickens. Drain any excess liquid and store in the fridge for 4 to 5 days.
To make a “thick” yoghurt, remove the skin on the surface of the yoghurt just made and pour the yoghurt into a muslin bag. Hang the bag over a bowl and let drain for about 2 hours or until the desired thickness is obtained
About the Author...
Joanne Hay, Editor of Nourished Magazine, Chief Nourisher and Mother of three is very grateful to live in Byron Bay and be able to share all she has learned about Nourishment. She has trained as an Acupuncturist (unfinished), Kinesiologist (finished) and parent (never finished). She serves the Weston A Price Foundation as a chapter leader. She loves sauerkraut, kangaroo tail stew, home made ice cream, her husband Wes and her kids Isaiah, Brynn and Ronin (in no particular order…well maybe ice cream first).
Apr 24th, 2007 at 10:37 pm
I know a lot of people heat their milk to near boiling, but isn’t that a kind of pasturisation?
I heat my milk to blood temperature, or 35 or 40 degrees C if I use the thermometer, but I think that any higher than that and good bugs are being destroyed.
Does the heating make a difference to the setting? I couldn’t leave yoghurt covered at room temperature (I use a thermos), but then I live in a colder climate probably.
The not disturbing the skin is interesting too - I won’t move my yoghurt once it’s started brewing or it doesn’t work out right, but I hadn’t thought about the skin part.
Apr 25th, 2007 at 5:01 pm
Good to hear you can do yoghurt that way (low temp) I’ll be sure to give it a try. Thanks Kate. How much yoghurt do you add? I don’t know if the heating makes a difference to the setting. I guess we’ll find out.
Apr 25th, 2007 at 10:01 pm
I usually add 2 tablespoons of yoghurt to 600 mls milk. But I’ve been thinking lately to try less, as my yoghurt is tarter than I want at the moment.
Apr 26th, 2007 at 5:42 pm
Tartness comes both from type of starter and from the temperature you make you yoghurt on.
I use a yoghurtmashine that keeps the yoghurt around 41 c
- and use a bulgarian starter
- and it makes rather mild tasting and thick yoghurt.
It takes aprox 4-6 hours.
I don´t heath the milk more than to lukewarm before I add starter.
I would say I use aprox 100 ml to 1 liter of whole milk.
Sadly I can´t get raw milk here - so I use very fresh organic jersey milk - that is unhomogenized and only lowtemperature pasturized. It is not ideal- but it is as best as I can do right now.
Yoghurt is very nice- better than the stuff in the shops and cheaper!
If you add yoghurt starter when milk is hotter and keep the temperature high- the yoghurt will get thick faster but often also more tart.
Apr 26th, 2007 at 10:06 pm
hmmm, do you mean that it’s the kind of bugs in the starter that make it more or less tart? My original starter this year had acidophilus, bulgaricus, thermophilus, and bifidus in it.
I do tend to let my yoghurt sit over night so often it brews for 12 hours. I think that makes it tarter, but it also makes it thicker. If I take it out of the thermos after say 6 hours it is much runnier than I like.
Maybe the cows and what they eat has something to do with it too. I’ve been wondering why when I make butter it takes only a few minutes of shaking the jar for the butter to form when people have been saying it takes 10 or 20 or more minutes.
Apr 27th, 2007 at 1:42 am
Yoghurt is a live thing and sometimes it work and sometimes it doesn´t - it is really annoying ;-D
The starter I use is based on Streptococcus thermophilus and Lactobacillus bulgaricus and I think it is the easist version. The bifidus - I find tricky to use.
The yoghurt I make is set - not stired. I don´t mind.
It is true that the food the cows eat and the breed makes a difference as well.
White clover gives a sweeter milk than fermented hay and corn( don´t know the real english word they use here.
Jersey cows milk contains more protein and fat than holsteins = better structure on the yoghurt- one of the danish organic dairies seperates all the milk the get - and use only jersey milk for the fermented products.
Butter from jersey cows are much yellower as well - When I was pregnant - I did not know anything about WAP- but I had acces to lots of yellow jersey cream- and it was a hot summer so all I ate was berries with yellow cream- and omelets and veggies from garden !- so lovely I wish I could find a jersey cow again.
Well happy yoghurt making.
Apr 28th, 2007 at 12:35 am
That’s all so interesting, thank-you Henriette. I have a couple more questions:
What is stirred yoghurt? (mine must be set I guess)
Do you know how to make yoghurt if you have no starter yoghurt?
Apr 28th, 2007 at 6:49 am
Stirred yoghurt is the runny type of yoghurt you get
- The dairy stir the yoghurt while it cools down- to get a glossy smooth yoghurt type,
If you just let it cool down without stiring like I do it is set- and the most common type in east Europe and India etc. and the most common when you make homemade yoghurt.
If I have no starter- I buy a organic live yoghurt - I have asked what type of bacteria the organic dairy (that I prefer) use and they told me it was based on streptococcus thermophilus and Lactobacillus bulgaricus - just like the dry starter I can buy( expensive).
Normally after 4-6 weeks my yoghurt seem to loose its action and I restart with a new batch eaither dry starter or live yoghurt. I have read that you can freeze some of your fresh yoghurt - and use a new cube - when your old starter seem to loose its “action” - I haven´t tried it yet.
I used to make yoghurt just like you do- but I decide to buy a yoghurt mashine.
The type I got has a heating plate and 8 small glasses and a lid. It is pretty handy - but I think I would get the type - with just 1 bowl instead if I got a new one easier to clean- but the small glasses are nice though
Feb 19th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
Could you please advise where in Melbourne can you buy live culture to make yoghurt
Apr 8th, 2008 at 11:51 am
You buy a tub of plain (natural) yoghurt from the supermarket. The yoghurt itself is a live culture. The bacteria will multiply at the the correct temperature when you add a spoonful to the milk you have heated. Need to keep at the correct temp. for 6 hours
Apr 8th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
I used natural yoghurt from the supermarket for my first starter. I make my yoghurt from raw milk now (Cleopatra’s Bath Milk) and when it’s done, i place sufficient in an old jam jar to ensure that it doesn’t get eaten so I’ve got enough for the next starter. I use 4-6 tablespoons per 2 litres of milk. I make my raw yoghurt in batches of up to 4 litres as I find it keeps incredibly well and I like to use some to make cheese.
I’ve been experimenting with making yoghurt for the last few months. Because I’m using raw milk, I do the same as Kate and heat it to a low temp only (110F on my candy thermometer). I have found what works best for me as my kitchen is quite cool is to pour my yoghurt-to-be into a casserole dish and place it on top of a hot water bottle wrapped in a towel. I then wrap both the casserole dish and towel wrapped hot water bottle with another towel and pop them into the oven which is insulated to stop the cold getting in.
To make yoghurt cheese (a thick creamy cheese similar to cottage cheese but better), I line a colander with an old linen tea towel that’s been wet and wrung out. I pour in the yoghurt and let it strain for up to 2 days in the fridge (the longer it drains the firmer your cheese). I then scrape the cheese off the tea towel and keep it in a clean glass container. You can add salt and herbs to the cheese to flavour it up if you like.
I had an interesting “OOPS” last week when my hot water bottle broke so I thought I’d put the oven on a very low temp to keep it warm enough for the yoghurt then turn it off. I forgot to turn it off and I pulled it out 8 hours later to find my casserole dish hot to touch and a very weird looking substance inside. Clear green whey on the top with goop on the bottom. I stirred it with a fork and found to my absolute delight that it looked and tasted just like mozzarella cheese! (we had home made pizza for dinner that night!!). The temp in the oven was too hot and had killed the bacteria but not before they’d started to sour the milk which combined with the heat had seperated the curds and whey. I’m not sure why I got mozzarella, but it must have something to do with the heat.
My most recent experiment (this morning) is icecream made from yoghurt (I have drained it for a few hours to thicken it up a bit). All I’ve added is coconut cream and some raw honey. If it works, I’ll add some cacoa nibs to the next lot. I’ll keep you posted on how the yoghurt icecream turns out.
Happy cooking!
Jun 25th, 2008 at 10:17 am
Hi Yoghurters
Our household luuuurves yoghurt.
I have been making yoghurt for years and am fortunate to have the recipe book, thermos and jar (even the original box) now not available but sold as a “Fresh cultured food kit” by Decor. I surfed the net for another to give as a gift recently, and did not find one, so assume that they are now not available. The recipes include d are yoghurt, yoghurt cheese, buttermilk, cottage cheese, with a few additional recipes to use these products. As I like low fat, I use our local Hilo milk which I think would be similar to Physical milk (hi protein, low fat).
The recipe says to heat 1 litre of milk to 85 - 99 C, remove from heat and cool to 44C, add 1 heaped tablespoon of natural yoghurt and mix well. Pour mixture into glass jar and cap loosely, place jar into the thermos. They also advise not to move the jar or check progress for at least 4 hours, but I like to leave it for about 8 hours before placing in the fridge to set. This makes a lovely creamy yoghurt.
All of the yoghurt recipes on this site are really quite similar, and I am sure that like me you like to try varying to see what happens.
Something which helps me to not ever have milk boil over is that I have an old, old sharp microwave which has a temperature probe. I just put the milk in a microwave jug, insert the temperature probe, set the temperature to 88C and press start. When the alarm sounds I press “temp” again and wait for it to go down to about 50 - 55C and then just go from there. I had used the provided thermometre in a saucepan of milk until I remembered that probe in the drawer that I had not ever used for anything else.
If I want to make yoghurt cheese I just follow the above, but make the required extra yoghurt, usually in a spare vocola preserving jar which only has a loose lid, I wrap it in a towel inside a plastic bag tied loosely at the top. I often put another plastic bag around the jar first - just in case of spills. The outer plastic bag tied loosely at the top is really just to keep the towel firmly around the jar. A cotton shopping bag would do the trick of holding the towel firmly just as well.
We live in a cold climate, and this works well, remembering that I like to leave my yoghurt for at least the 8 hours (sometimes overnight) before transferring the jar to the fridge.
If I havent had time to make my own yoghurt I just love full cream Yalna creamy vanilla yoghurt, and then use some of that to start my next batch of homemade.
Them’s some of my yoghurt experiences.
*I think I have edited them all out but if not please excuse any spelling or grammar mistakes and just have a laugh at my expense :)
Aug 8th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
hi all,
how was yoghurt made before the use of thermometers? Just heated to where it is still ok to put your finger in without burning??? People also did not have regfrigerators. So yoghurt just stood about till eaten? Was it eaten before it had a chancce to go ‘off’? Does it actually go off?
Cheese……we refrigerate it. What about past generations and cultures that still do not have refrigerators. I would assume soft cream cheese would be eaten quickly. Hard cheese, after it has been cut open from the wax sealant would keep longer? How do you coat a hard cheese with wax?
I have been making yoghurt with an easiyo maker. I will place my raw milk with my bought yogurt mixed with in, into the inner container……instead of the packet of dried milk solids and culture mix, to which water is added, which is then placed in the larger container that is filled with boiling water. I will see what i end up with after 15hrs.
cheers ingrid
Aug 9th, 2008 at 6:31 pm
I have a friend that uses an easiyo maker with real milk and it works out fine.
And yes, you can use your finger to judge the temperature instead of a thermometer. Heat to a bit above blood temperature. You’ll soon learn because if the milk is too hot it will curdle when you add the starter yoghurt. If it does this still make the yoghurt, but you will a fermented curds and whey instead which you can strain to make delicious soft cheese.
I’ve lived without a fridge quite a bit. Cheese isn’t too much of a problem, but it can go mouldy. Yoghurt is harder to keep. It can go mouldy, but even if it doesn’t it does seem to change into something I don’t like much quicker. I assume that is because the warmth makes the bugs eat up all the lactose faster and so you get a more sour, then dead, product sooner. I’ve wondered about traditional cultures and how they manage this too and like you I assume they just eat the yoghurt before too long, and are continually making fresh lots because they have a continuous supply of milk - there is no need to keep yoghurt for a week or two.
Also, I think traditional cultures have different tastes and stomachs for non-refrigerated foods, and so like the taste better than I do i.e. the yoghurt hasn’t gone off so much as developped more strongly than I am used to.
Aug 10th, 2008 at 8:16 am
Home Made Yogurt
Open a plastic bottle or use what’s left of an almost full gallon of non-fat milk. Add anywhere from a couple of teaspoons to a cup or so (I’ve not found the amount makes much difference) of fresh, store-bought, plain, non-fat yoghurt. Cap and shake the bottle to mix.
Place the milk bottle in a crockpot, that’s filled with water (the top third of the bottle will not be covered with water). Turn the crockpot to the lowest setting. Place a thermometer into the water. Allow to sit until the temperature reaches between 120 – 130 F. I check it every hour or so to make sure it’s not exceeded the temp ‘cause overtemping kills the culture. Once in a while when I check it, I’ll shake the bottle then put it back in the crockpot with the water.
At some point (4 hours, 6 hours, 8 hours, etc.), maybe even before it reaches the above temp range, it will thicken. Take it out, allow it to sit on the kitchen counter ‘til cooled enough to put in the refrig.
This makes a thick, but pourable yoghurt and tastes wonderful.
Sometimes, and I’ve not figured out why this happens, the “yogurt” separates with a clear yellow liquid “whey” on the top and thick, creamy, white yoghurt to the bottom. I’d like to know what I’ve done to make this happens as it does not happen all the time.
When it does separate I have a number of choices:
Pour off the whey and use it for the liquid I use in making bread (I often add the dry yeast right to it when I’m starting).
Pour the whey out with the yoghurt into a glass and thoroughly mix it with a spoon.
Throw away the whey, though I try not to throw away any food.
All this works.
Rick
Aug 11th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
Here are the answers to my question
Whey separates from yogurt
• incubated too long (cut the incubation time; chill yogurt as soon as milk begins to thicken)
• disturbed, bumped, stirred during incubation (incubate in a quiet place where it won’t be bumped)
http://www.dvo.com/newsletter/monthly/2003/june/0603tabletalk.html
Aug 11th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
hi all,
i made my first raw milk yoghurt.
i used my easiyo mwith the maker one adds the dry solids to cold water and places in boiling water in the outer container and out comes a firm yoghurt.
all i read on using fresh milk said to heat the milk, so i did. i did not want to use a thermometer.
i heated milk till just before it scalded…ie no bubbles forming on the edges. i let it cool to luke warm. i then added biodynamic greek yogurt…4 tabls mixed with a little milk. this i added to the warm milk and added to inner container, then placed it in the outer container filled with boiling water. this i did in the evening.
next day approx 11am i checkeed and it was still liquid. i refilled with more boiling water and pulled it out 6 hrs later.
i placed in frig. this morning/monday…it is a drink type formulae. different taste to what i am used to. seemed sort of lumpy.
how can i get it firmer???? not that it really matters to me as i put it in the blender with fruit.
i just prrefer firmer when eating it on its own.
regards ingrid
Aug 11th, 2008 at 10:13 pm
Julienne
You can buy the actual yogurt grains from: http://www.cheeselinks.com.au/
They also sell cheese making equipment and organic cloths. I think these grains cost about $25 and will last for one year.
Aug 12th, 2008 at 11:58 am
Ingrid, try using less starter - say 1 tablespoon to a litre of milk. Probably your milk wasn’t warm enough when it went into the container. The starter would have cooled it furhter. And replace the hot water more often. Also make sure you don’t shake or disturb the yoghurt when you do this, as this affects how it forms.
Aug 12th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
My thermometer for making yoghurt is my finger. An elderly Indian lady taught me this trick years ago - when the milk is warm enough to stick your finger in while keeping it still but stirring your finger through the milk feels too hot then it’s ready to have the starter added.
Like Kate, I often find that less is more when it comes to starter and also find that 1 tablespoon per litre of milk is enough. I also use a bamix to thoroughly blend the starter into the milk.
In his wonderful book Wild Fermentation, Sandor Katz says that by using too much starter yoghurt you crowd the bacillus bacteria which produces a sour, watery yoghurt.
Aug 15th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
Hi Kate and all,
WHAT HAPPENNED. This time I ended up with a thin watery liquid and lumpy ‘curds’? are they called curds?
Sarah said that an Indian woman told her that too much starter makes for a runny lumpy product. I used less starter and it was worse. Am I leaving it in hot water too long…19 hrs?
I did as you suggested and used half the amount of starter that I had previously used. Then in put in my easiyo maker with the boiling water and changed boiling water more often. I keep reading that the mix to be covered loosely. My yoghurt maker says to screw the lid on tightly…but that was with making it from dry packet mixes that were then mixed with water.
Will the lumpy separated curds make a cheese if draining the lot through a cloth? Or do I put it in the blender and mix with fruit as I usually do when eating yoghurt.
Regards Ingrid
Aug 18th, 2008 at 7:52 pm
Ingrid I’ve had the same thing happen a few times and I think that mine ended up like that because the incubation temperature for the yoghurt was too hot. I was so excited the first time it happened though- I thought I’d discovered how to make mozarella cheese!
Maybe try again with a smaller amount and use hot water from the tap rather than boiling water for about 12 hours. Or use boiling water but don’t change it - you shouldn’t need to if the easiyo is insulated. All I use is a hot water bottle inside my oven to keep the temperature warm and stable (oven is insulated). I sit my yoghurt on the shelf above the hot water bottle and this works for me everytime.
If you strain the curds (the lumpy bits) from the whey (greenish liquid - looks like a proper witches brew) you’ll end up with a thick ‘yoghurt cheese’. Or you can just throw it in the blender with your fruit as you would yoghurt.
Aug 22nd, 2008 at 10:01 am
Yes, I think the water is too hot too Ingrid. And I agree with Sarah, strain the curds to make lebneh.
My own problem at the moment is that I’ve made 3 batches in a row that are too sour. I’ve just started using raw milk again, and for the latest batch I used less starter and grew for 12 hours, but it’s still too sour. I’ll use even less starter next time and try 6-8hours, but is there anything I can do with the batches I have to make them less sour? I’m not big on adding anything sweet, but wondered if there were other ‘remedies’?
Aug 22nd, 2008 at 10:04 am
I have a friend who uses an easiyo with raw milk and I’m pretty sure she uses hot tap water, not boiling water. She changes the water half way through if it gets too cold.
Aug 22nd, 2008 at 1:05 pm
Kate, it sounds like your starter is too getting too old. The older it gets, the more sour your yoghurt will be which is fine if you like it sour but not so good if you don’t. Probably best to start off with some fresh yoghurt for a starter. There’s an organic brand in my health food store that do a full fat natural yoghurt in a tiny baby sized tub and I buy one of these to use as a fresh batch of starter whenever mine starts to get too sour or I haven’t made yoghurt in a while.
Sarah
Aug 24th, 2008 at 9:50 am
Thanks Sarah, I’ll try that out. The yoghurt I am using for starter is a few weeks old but tastes very mild. Do you think it’s still going to make sour yoghurt? Also can I use the sour yoghurt I made as starter, given that it’s only a few days old? What I am asking here is if it’s the age that’s the issue or the sourness?
Aug 24th, 2008 at 7:14 pm
It’s the sourness of the yoghurt starter that you use as opposed to the age - but it tends to become more sour and more tart as it ages. However sweet or sour your starter yoghurt culture is will determine the taste of the yoghurt that you make - this is what I learnt when I first started to experiment with yoghurt making and it has held true for me so I’m not sure how you’re ending up with very sour yoghurt when your starter tastes mild. Is your starter a store bought yoghurt? Does it have any sugar or sweetners in it?
Aug 25th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
The starter yoghurt is an organic, plain, full fat small business one that comes from the farm that the milk is grown on. It’s mild, especially at this time of year. I’ve used this yoghurt often as starter and not had sourness problems before.
I think it’s that I’ve used too much starter and let the yoghurt set for too long. I’ll try one more batch carefully, and if that doesn’t work I’ll change starter.
btw, can I freeze starter yoghurt? I hate having to buy a tub of yoghurt in order to make my own (the smallest tub here is about 200mls and although it’s an organic yoghurt it’s made from milk ‘concentrate’ and I don’t quite trust it).