Making Yogurt

[Mudman]

I started making yogurt this week and was hoping to get some advice from others who have done it. I have made two batches very successfully. One from whole milk, one from skim, and there is one in the making from goat milk. They taste great but the skim one was a bit chalky tasting. Is this from the type of milk that I used or was it a problem in the setup? I would rather make it from skim but the texture grossed out my wife and one of my kids.

[Mark0820]

I've only made it from whole milk. I have never tried skim milk.

[Mudman]

Greek yogurt is made with skim and then strained I think. That is what I did and used a store bought Greek for the starter and it turned out just like the original but chalky.

[DiggingDogFarm]

Without the fat, its going to be 'chalky'. Commercial yogurts have additives to mask the 'chalkiness'.

Authentic Greek yogurt is full fat, I think that the low-fat and fat-free is pretty much an American thing.

[Mudman]

The stuff I have is fat free made with skim and yogurt cultures with no additives. And not chalky.

[desertlzbn]

Try putting it in a food processor and blending it a bit. I also have "hung" mine in cheese cloth then processed it with some molasses YUMMY!

[roper2008]

I use to make yogurt. Just recently I discovered Kefir. Taste a lot like
homemade plain yogurt.

[Tania]

I also recently discovered the milk kefir grains - they work wonderfully, no effort is required other than putting the kefir grains into a fresh milk every morning. A fresh batch of kefir is ready by dinner time (or by next morning if you like more sour taste).

Love it!

Much easier to deal with than scalding the milk for Greek style yogurt and then keeping it at 110F for hours.

I also have Fil Mjolk mesophilic yogurt culture which only needs 70-78F (room temperatures) to set over 12+ hrs, but it is less 'thick' than kefir or any thermophilic yogurt.

[Mudman]

Originally Posted by Tania

Much easier to deal with than scalding the milk for Greek style yogurt and then keeping it at 110F for hours.

I have tried the kefir water but not milk. And keeping the temp. for the yogurt has not been a challenge for me. I cook the milk, mix in the culture, then store in a small cooler half filled with warm water over night. I have had a 100% success rate with this process. But yes, it is a little more work.

[nctomatoman]

We love our yogurt - it tastes fine no matter what type of milk (well when we were drinking cow milk...but that's another story). We have an inexpensive yogurt maker - use commercial yogurt as the starter - piece of cake.....we used either skin or 1 or 2%. Eat it with a bunch of our home made granola on top. Yum.....

[mdvpc]

I make soy yogurt, and its a little trickier than with milk, but still tastes good to me.

[nctomatoman]

Michael, we'd love to know how you make it....do you just use the soy yogurt from the store as a starter? Different starter? thanks in advance!

[RobinB]

The recipe that we have used for over 10 years has powdered milk and some finished yogurt added to whatever version of cow's milk you use. I've never used anything but cow's milk, so can't comment on how that works. We use non fat or 1% milk and the powdered milk is non-fat. The finished yogurt is never chalky. We also "chain" yogurt... that is use some of the last batch in making the next batch. No yogurt maker, we make it in quart mason jars on top of an old heating pad. No muss, no fuss, and it never fails. Greek yogurt is thick because it has been strained in cheesecloth to eliminate some of the whey. Strain it longer and you have yogurt cheese.

[feldon30]

Actually I am eating a full fat Greek yogurt right now. 10%. Wow it's rich, and won't do any favors for the midsection. In the US I used to like Dannon.

Anyway, I've made yogurt a few times. The last time I got creative and added Nescafe espresso powder and also powdered milk and I thought it turned out artificial and gummy. I think it was 1/4 cup for 48oz of yogurt (in 6 individual cups).

A Greek yogurt I like here is 0.9% fat and has both lemon flavor and chunks of softened lemon in it. It's awesome. I'll have to keep experimenting with homemade.

[RobinB]

Tania, I've never heard of milk kefir grains. Where do you get them?

Whatever method you use will work as long as you can keep the temperature constant. We put our soon-to-be-yogurt in glass jars, set them on a heating pad under an inverted stock pot for about 8 hours, and it has never failed. I've heard about using a cooler, but haven't ever tried it! We go through a lot of yogurt and make multiple quarts each week. Okay, so now I'm craving yogurt...