[Nearly] Foolproof Homemade Stovetop Yogurt

Boy was I glad I learned how to make yogurt before I got pregnant.  I couldn't get enough of the stuff once I was with child.  I saved a ton of money with all the yogurt I consumed (well, and continue to consume, really) by making it myself.  There's a lot of different ways to make yogurt, each a slight variation of one another.  This is my method, a result of a lot of reading, as well as a very informative demo done at a local Weston Price chapter meeting a while back.  While I haven't tried a yogurt maker, I think it rivals it in ease of making, with very few botched batches. No fancy gadgets, just the stove top and oven!


Supplies Needed (for one quart of yogurt):

Large saucepan or stockpot
Dish rag
Quart sized mason jar
Candy Thermometer
Approx. 2 T of plain yogurt to use as a starter (be sure to check that it has live cultures in it! Also, go ahead and get a quart of plain yogurt, for even more of a money saving tip at the end of this post**)
Quart of whole milk 
cookie sheet

Directions:

Line the bottom of pot with a dish rag, and fill about halfway with water. Turn oven light on (or pilot light for you fancy gas oven folks), and place a cookie sheet in the oven. 

Fill mason jar with milk, and place in pot of water, and turn on burner to high.  Bring water to a boil.

 

Notice the dish rag in the bottom--keeps the jars from rattling around when water is boiling. Nifty, huh? (I also make two quarts at a time--3 quarts a week, almost all for me when I was pregnant--I wasn't kidding when I said I craved yogurt!)

Allow the temperature of the milk to reach 180 degrees.  This sterilizes the milk, so that at the end, we're only introducing good bacteria, not bad.  I don't feel the need to sterilize all my yogurt making tools, however.  I, of course, start with clean yogurt making tools though.  Remove the milk from the burner to cool down. I want to say, with my stove top, it takes somewhere in the vicinity of a half hour to reach 180 degrees, if that's helpful. 

At this point, you have two choices.  It's kind of like those choose your adventure books, except with both choices you reach the same ending.  Same thing, except...not. Ahem, anyway...You can allow the milk to cool down on the counter top, which is the long way--about an hour and a half.  Or, you can fill a sink up with cold water and submerge the jars 3/4 of the way, for a much shorter cooling time--about 20 minutes. I almost never choose the shorter version, because it cools too fast for me to remember to take it out, and then I almost always have to heat it up to the right temperature again. 

Allow milk to cool to 90-110 degrees.  One of the few times I've botched yogurt, was when I went through a period where I forgot my thermometer measured in 10 degree increments and not 5. Oops.

Stir in yogurt starter.  I hear if you stir too vigorously, it can harm the bacteria and render a botched batch as well.  Also, more starter yogurt does NOT render a thicker end product.  That's also one of the other times I've botched a couple batches.  A little goes a long way, and the bacteria need room to multiply.  

Place mason jar lids, without the rings, so they don't rust while incubating, on the jars, and place the jars on the cookie sheet in the oven.  (Dang, my oven needs to be cleaned.)  Lots of people recommend the use of a crockpot, or a cooler to keep the temperature warm enough during the incubation period.  I've always had good luck using this oven method, although I have in the past also heated my oven up to the lowest temperature setting (170 for my oven) and then let it cool down, still with the oven light on.  Incubation time is anywhere between 4-24 hours.  The longer it incubates, the tarter the yogurt will be.  An added bonus to incubating the yogurt for upwards of 24 hours, is nearly all the lactose is eaten up by the good bacteria, which apparently for lactose intolerant folks, can be a good thing.  I choose to let my yogurt incubate at least 8 hours. Once the desired incubation time is up, transfer yogurt to the fridge, keeping the jars still in the process.  Allow the yogurt to chill thoroughly before digging in!

Of course you may want to flavor your yogurt somehow before digging in.  I'm not hardcore enough of a health nut to just eat plain yogurt. This is one of the things I love about making my own yogurt, though, is the element of control I have over what goes into my yogurt.  No weird fillers, high fructose corn syrup, or fiber (not to knock fiber or anything, but fiber doesn't really belong in everything I eat..)  Cut up fruit, fresh, or frozen and a dab of raw honey, or yogurt spiked with cinnamon and sweetened with stevia have all graced the bowls of my yogurt.  Or blend it up in a smoothie, for a quick breakfast, or snack.  Heck, add copious amounts of sugar, especially if you're used to the flavored stuff in the cups...it would still be leaps and bounds better than the storebought stuff. (I mean, not that I would recommend this, but it could be a way to ease into using less sweetener over time)  Not to mention cheaper. 

**Money Saving Tip

While I haven't sat down and figured the actual amount I save by making my own yogurt, a quick glance at the price of the individual cups of yogurt versus the quarts of yogurt reveals instant savings per serving right there.  It doesn't take a mathematician, then, to know that yielding two dozen quarts of homemade yogurt from one quart of storebought plain yogurt is gonna save a ton of money.  How do I make 2 dozen quarts of yogurt from one quart of plain yogurt before that quart goes bad? By freezing the yogurt in ice cube trays!  Each little ice cube of yogurt is about 2 tablespoons--the perfect amount to start each batch of yogurt with!  I simply pop out the needed number of yogurt cubes into a bowl and let it thaw out on the counter while my milk is cooling (if choosing the long way of cooling) and it's thawed and ready to go by the time I'm ready to stir it in.  

An Important note about 'expiration dates' of homemade yogurt

Obviously homemade yogurt doesn't have an expiration date, and therefore some folks might be wondering how long homemade yogurt lasts, or when to tell if a batch has otherwise gone bad.  Let your sense of sight, smell, and most importantly, taste be your guide.  If something smells or tastes 'off', or if it doesn't have a yogurty consistency (homemade yogurt tends to be thinner), don't consume it.  I've never had a batch sit around long enough for it to go bad though ;)

This post if part of Real Food Wednesdays