My husband and I have been making our own yogurt for about 1.5 years. Once you make your own, you’ll never go back to store bought! We like to know what’s in the yogurt (i.e. just milk!) and it’s also cheaper (about half the price of buying it) and reduces waste a bit. Yogurt maker: We use a Euro Cuisine yogurt maker with an extra tier to make 14 individual portions at one time. This solution works very well for us. Euro Cuising products are available on Golda’s Kitchen:
- http://www.goldaskitchen.com/ca/yogurt-maker-7-6-oz-digital.html
- http://www.goldaskitchen.com/ca/yogurt-maker-top-tier.html
- http://www.goldaskitchen.com/ca/yogurt-maker-jars-8-pcs.html
Milk: You can make yogurt out of different milks (we have tried goat and almond) but we always revert back to cow… Habit maybe but also we just like it! We buy Rockridge organic skim milk on Spud. Honestly, 1% or 2% milk makes much creamier yogurt but you can get away with skim. Culture: We buy yogurt culture from Community Natural Foods. You can use a previous container of yogurt for your culture but ours usually gets eaten… The probiotic cultures have not worked for us so we stick to the plain one. It is pretty cheap to buy but you must keep it in the fridge! Greek yogurt or thicker yogurt: To make Greek yogurt, strain the yogurt. Use a cheesecloth. Strained yogurt is also the base for things like frozen yogurt!
- Milk we use
- In a large pot, bring milk to a boil. For our yogurt maker, it takes 3.2L of milk for 14 jars. However, if you make too much for the jars you have, it can store in the fridge and made the next day
- Allow milk to cool to 43°C or lower. We often use a cold water bath to speed the cooling process but if you have more time, just leave it on the stove
- Culture we use. It's available at Community Natural Foods
- Add the 2 packages of culture to about 1.5 cups of the milk. Stir
- Transfer the milk/culture into the big pot. Mix. (I use the measuring cup to scoop/pour)
- Set the yogurt maker to 9 hours
- Pour the warm milk into each of the glass containers. Make sure not to fill them to the very top. (Lids are only used after the yogurt is finished, for storing in the fridge). Put the cover on the yogurt maker and wait!
- When yogurt is ready, put the lids on the containers and place yogurt in the fridge. Wait about 3 hours before consuming it. It takes a while to cool down
