First the question... why are you using precious milk to make yogurt? Simple answer: We like yogurt, it's good for us, I received another supply of milk yesterday, with more to come in the future through a bartering agreement, and well... I needed to see this work for myself!
To research the process, I asked a few people that I know have made yogurt a bunch of questions. They assured me it was a simple process requiring no special equipment. Check. Then I went to the internets and read oodles of blogs and other sites that said pretty much the same thing. Check check. Finally, I went to YouTube, and watched a few videos. My favorite was one from the "Yooper Goddess" out of the U.P. She's a hoot! Good for a quick learn and laugh session if you have 9 minutes of time to watch. Her video is here.
Early this morning, I set out to start my first batch of plain, homemade yogurt. I put ten cups of regular white milk into a heavy bottomed cast iron Dutch oven pan, and I heated it to 170 degrees F. I used an electric probe thermometer to get an accurate reading while doing this. I stirred it around with a rubber spatula during the heating process. I don't know why... maybe I was afraid of it scalding??--which it didn't.
When the milk reached temp, I turned off the heat, and let it slowly cool to 107 degrees F. This took about 45 minutes or so. I didn't do anything to the milk when it cooled, I just let it rest and left it alone. When it was cooled down to 107 degrees F, I took roughly a cup of the warm milk out, transferred it to a glass bowl, and added the culture or starter, which would turn the milk into yogurt.
From what I understand, cultures can be had in a variety of places. You can get separated yogurt cultures, or you can just use regular plain yogurt with active or heat-activated cultures already in it. This is what I did. I used an individual-serving container of plain, strained, Greek yogurt that had five cultures in it. Having these cultures is vital. My "starter yogurt" had the following cultures:
Lactobacillus bulgaricus, Streptococcus thermophilus, Lactobacillus acidophilus, Bifidus, and Lactobacillus casei. I simply took this individual serving container of yogurt, my starter, and dumped it into the separate glass bowl with the reserved cup of warm milk, and whisked it together. Then I transferred the mixture back into the main pot of the rest of the milk, and whisked it all together so it was incorporated. Easy.
The rest was simply time. I just had to wrap up the Dutch oven in a towel and let it sit, undisturbed for ten hours, but I was curious. Instead, I transferred the milk mixture to my glass-lidded Crock Pot so that I could see the process while it was going on without disturbing it. I didn't actually make the yogurt in the Crock Pot as the pictures may suggest--apparently you can do so in a variety of the internet research that I did, but I didn't do that today. Maybe I will with the second batch.
With the cultured warm milk in the Crock Pot, I put the probe back in to watch the temp--again, curiosity--(I blame being married to my nerd husband for this), wrapped the slow cooker in a bath towel, and then a blanket, and left it alone for ten hours.
After ten hours, I removed the towel and blanket, took off the lid, and looked at how science had done what was promised... a very thin, whey-topped yogurt was there! Hooray! Now, all that was left was to strain it. The initial product was very thin and watery. I put two small strainers lined with cheesecloth into a big colander, and sat it into the kitchen sink. I then scooped out the whey yogurt and dumped it into the cheesecloth lined strainers. For regular consistency yogurt, it said to let it strain for 2-4 hours, Greek yogurt 4-6 hours, and for yogurt cheese, 6-10 hours. The longer it sits, the more whey will strain off, and the thicker the yogurt. Also, the longer it sits, the more it continues to ferment, and the tangier it will be.
I let ours strain for roughly 4.5 hours, and it was about the consistency of the "fruit-on-the-bottom" type yogurt cups you'd get at the store. Ten cups of initial milk made about half that much in yogurt, as most of it was whey that was a byproduct that was discarded (I read this whey is good for livestock treats too, should we ever go down that road).
It was a productive day. We also finished using the last of our summer zucchini that was in the freezer and made two loaves of zucchini bread--our house smells fantastic right now. Dinner was the last pheasant from the freezer too with some steamed veggies:
Also this afternoon, a good friend messaged me that she was cleaning out her pantry, and had some freebies for us. Score! Love the freebies! I bartered some blackberry syrup and strawberry jam, as I wanted to show my appreciation, and appreciative we certainly are! Looks like from this haul, I will have lots more dry beans to process in our pressure canner in the coming weeks.
I still need to think of a way to get Jay to eat dry beans... any ideas?
Finally, it's indeterminate whether I will be posting regularly this coming week. Work will be extraordinarily busy-- it is basketball season, and I have some extra responsibilities this coming week. I will try my best, and I sincerely want to do so, but if my posts are hit and miss, whereas they have been pretty regular, that is why.
Thanks again for everyone who has been reading. I can't stress this enough. Knowing that others are interested in what we are doing keeps us motivated to continue our challenge. Eighteen days in, and we haven't spent a dime!
--SH