Homemade Yogurt is teh easy

[Precious Moments Zalgo]

You will need:

• 4 clean pint (1/2 liter) jars.
• A pot.
• A thermometer.
• A cooler large enough to hold the four jars upright.
• 1/2 gallon (2 liters) organic whole milk.
• A small container of the best Greek or Middle Eastern yogurt you can get your hands on.   Make sure it contains live cultures.

Scoop 1/2 TBSP (7.5 ml) yogurt into the jars.  Eat the rest.
Heat the milk in the pot.  Hold at 180° F (82° C) for 20 minutes.  This step will help make the yogurt thick and spoonable, rather than runny and drinkable.
Cover and let cool to 110° F (42° C).
Divide warm milk between the jars.  Screw on the lids and shake to distribute the yogurt.
Place jars in the cooler.  Fill cooler with hot tap water almost up to the lids of the jars.
Close cooler, cover with blanket or towel.
Let it sit undisturbed for about 10 hours.
Your yogurt is ready.

I always start a new batch when I open my last jar.  That way, I always have high-quality yogurt for the cost of high-quality milk.

[Jenne]

See, we mix the milk (usu a gallon of 1%) with a bit of live culture yogurt and then put it in a corningware dish inside the oven with the ovenlight on for about a day and a half, and that is enough to change the whole thing into yogurt.  Took us YEARS to get that recipe right, strangely enough.

[Sir Squid Diddimus]

This does not sound difficult.
Hmm. I may have to try it.

[Jenne]

Shit, we simmer it first, then it goes in corningware.  Forgot that lil piece.  And you have to let it cool before putting in oven w/ovenlight.

[Precious Moments Zalgo]

Yeah, the heating it up causes some chemical changes to the proteins in the milk that makes it thicken better, and also kills any potential competing microbes, but then you want cool it because the yogurt microbes like to be around 110.

Also, it's good to don't put in too much starter yogurt.  More is not better.  1 TBSP starter per quart of milk is what has worked best for me.

[Kai]

I like this idea.

Over the past 5 years I've grown accustomed to plain yogurt aka "the stuff without all the sugar and artificial preservatives". Its gotten to the point where the western style yogurt is too sweet for me, makes me feel sick.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I only make a quart at a time so I bought a teeny tiny yogurt maker for $12. All it does is hold the temperature for a day, but it's been worth it. Also, wide mouth quart canning jars are awesome for yogurt. Also, I'm a lazy fuck so I put my milk in the jar, microwave it, add some honey, let it cool a bit, add the starter yogurt, then cover it and stick it in the yogurt warmer overnight.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I was going to find my yogurt maker on Amazon, but the closest thing I could find is $50. Fuck that!

[Triple Zero]

I gotta check to make sure but over here, organic milk and organic yoghurt are nearly the same price ... And none of the yoghurt is sweetened. (well except for cheap flavoured yoghurt like strawberry, chocolate or vanilla. The fancier flavoured yoghurt is usually a bucket of plain yoghurt with a jam/compote at the bottom, such as apple-cinnamon YUM).

However, the general idea of getting micro-organisms to change one food into another is always pretty cool.

Not as cool as when they turn it into booze, but still

[Jenne]

Yeah, the heating it up causes some chemical changes to the proteins in the milk that makes it thicken better, and also kills any potential competing microbes, but then you want cool it because the yogurt microbes like to be around 110.

Also, it's good to don't put in too much starter yogurt.  More is not better.  1 TBSP starter per quart of milk is what has worked best for me.

THAT sounds about right--about a tablespoon or so--I think we only put in like 3 for the whole gallon, if you want to know the truth.