Hello!
I'm going to take leave of my usual form and do a quick photo blog of how to make yogurt. Several friends asked because I make yogurt regularly now that we've been under quarantine/Shelter in Place for 3 weeks. Cottage Sara is back in business! Tho, not as Queen of Strawbs, that's still on indefinite hiatus.
If you're new to my blog, feel free to poke around. I haven't had many spoons to update in like...2 years? Partially because, well, life. Partially because I'm writing a book about how to be friends when you're an adult. If you want to hear more about that, please comment and I'll get in touch.
HOW TO MAKE YOGURT: a lot of it.
A tale in several parts
Start with some store bought yogurt, like Mountain High or Verka. Mountain High doesn't exist east of the Rockies, so don't get too bent out of shape about the brand. What you want to look for to determine if it's real yogurt:
- Has acidophilus and/or bifidus listed in the ingredients
- Has close to 1:1 ratio of protein to sugar
- DOES NOT CONTAIN ASPERTAME or stevia or any other sweeteners
- Is plain, no flavor even vanilla
- Tastes tangy, has texture that you like
- Whole milk, not low fat or no fat
First step is to bring ~1.5 cups of store-bought yogurt to room temperature. This takes about 2 hours so you want to make sure you do it first. I like putting it in a mason jar because mason jars have lids and they are pretty easy to gauge temperature by touching the outside of the glass.
Double boil milk. This should be whole milk, like 4% milkfat. The way I do a double-boil is I have a three pot set (Ikea's cheapest aluminum set) and I use the medium and the large pots. I fill the large pot with water and then fill the medium pot with milk. The point of a double boil is that the water boiling regulates the heat (water boils at a constant 100C) so the milk's temperature comes up slowly and can be controlled. DO NOT try to boil milk in a kettle. It is DISASTROUS and the cleanup alone may cost you the deposit on your first apartment. Double boiling doesn't have to be fancy, the setup we have was ~$45 at Ikea for 3 pots. That was several years ago, but still, Ikea is wonderful.
One of the most pretentious ways I've ever read to boil milk is "stir eleven times clockwise followed by eleven times counterclockwise until vapors arise." While probably a good way to make a potion, definitely not required for making yogurt. Boiling milk looks like lots of teeny bubbles and the top looks like what you get with a latte, rather than the giant bubbles of boiling water. Milk is a lot more viscus so mind that you don't let it boil over the pot because it has a tendency to REALLY over boil.
Once you get your whole interior pot boiling, remove about 1.5 cups in a heat-safe bowl. The bowl should be about twice as big, able to contain at least 3 cups.
Cover. Did I mention I like things that come with lids? Because plates are not super effective lids...
Let your cold yogurt and hot milk both equilibrate to room temperature. Set a timer for 1 hr and check back.
Meanwhile you can just cover the interior pot of the double-boil and take it out of the water. It should hold its heat nicely for an hour.
ONE HOUR LATER or maybe more if your food is stubborn
Carefully whisk the yogurt into the cooled, now room temperature milk. During this step you want to break up any and all clumps! Whisk smoothly and try as best you can to get the yogurt evenly distributed.
Slowly whisk/fold the bowl of milk seeded with yogurt into the main pot of hot milk. Again, keep it frothy and make sure there are no clumps. After the whole 3 cups is reincorporated stir for a bit to make sure that it's well mixed.
Cover and place in oven. THE OVEN NEEDS TO BE OFF FOR THIS STEP. Mostly you want to encourage the bacteria in the yogurt to grow so your seeded yogurt needs to sleep in a warm environment. The heating pad method is good if you don't have a pilot light but it's not great if you plan to sleep during the incubation period. Most heating pads have auto-off settings after 4 hrs. You want the yogurt to incubate for 8-12 hours.
8 TO 12 HOURS LATER
Take yogurt out of oven and check that it looks like yogurt. One thing that may happen is that a lot of watery/milky fluid will be on the top. That's WHEY! Congrats you're on your whey to making the
best pancakes of your life. (The recipe is very full of itself but they are indeed the best pancakes I've ever had.) If you don't have that, don't worry we can make some in the next steps. However, if you have ~1in of whey you might have curdled your yogurt. Most of the times I've done this (yeah...more than once...) it's because I didn't let the hot milk cool and/or the yogurt get to room temp first. Sometimes it's salvageable and sometimes it isn't. I'm really really sorry if it isn't, especially given how hard it is to get more milk from the store nowadays. :<
THAT'S IT. THAT'S YOGURT, YOU MADE IT, GOOD JOB!
The next bit is only if you want to get fancy or the texture isn't quite to your liking.
Cut some cheesecloth to fit over a colander and then place in a big bowl. Doesn't have to be metal, that's just what I have. I like using my crinkle-cut fabric scissors for the cheesecloth because I've failed many times trying to use other scissors. The cheesecloth doesn't have to be folded over or doubled-back or anything, just be reasonably sure it won't rip.
Did you know that ladles come in sizes?! I didn't know this until I rented space in an industrial kitchen. The ladle I'm using here is a 4 oz ladle. It's handy to know how much volume you're processing. Transfer yogurt into cheesecloth colander.
Stir the yogurt and move it around, making sure to kinda, scrape along and underneath where it contacts with the cheesecloth. Like any other straining event, you want the thicker stuff up top and mush it around such that the thinner stuff can get into through the straining device and into the bowl.
Once you've gotten a good amount of whey or left it for 10ish minutes (or until you get bored) go ahead and plop it into a container. I use a 64oz yogurt container. I eat a lot of yogurt. I can't eat eggs. I dread breakfast. Anyway. I have one of these large containers. You may not. I advise lots of wide mouth mason jars with the two-part lids.
The whey will come through the cheesecloth and then I pour it into a widemouth mason jar. Told you I'm in love with those things. I cry every time I break one.
Et voila! Preposterous amount of yogurt and a decent amount of whey!
Yay!
Extra photos of the pancakes we made from the whey:
