Yogurt 3 Ways - making homemade yogurt

When I was about nine, my mom bought one of the yogurt makers that was all the rage that year.  It had six little plastic pots with yellow lids set in two rows in a white plastic tray.  The lids were that specific yellow color – not taxicab, not mustard – that marks everything as being from the 1970s.  I think we made our own yogurt two or three times in the little machine, and everything about the memory of it makes the idea of making yogurt seem impossibly retro.  But it is also something I love to eat, one of the world’s oldest and most important foods (the ancient Assyrian word for yogurt meant “life”), and something that seems both entertaining and money-saving to try to make from scratch.  So here we go.

First, I had to say goodbye to my memory of the yellow yogurt maker.  I wanted to do it old-school (and plus we don’t have room for another single use appliance).  You can buy yogurt makers, though, if the idea appeals to you. I read two sets of directions: The laid back, hippy-mellow instructions in our copy of the “Family Creative Workshop,” published in 1974, and the precise, masterful, fully-illustrated recipe provided on the world wide web by David B. Fankhauser, Ph.D., Professor of Biology and Chemistry at U.C. Clermont College in Batavia Ohio.  Because I am squeamish about all things bacterial, I went with Dr. Fankhauser.

Equipment you’ll need:

• An unopened container of milk, the fresher the better
• An unopened container of yogurt with live cultures
• A meat thermometer
• Some clean jars
• A heavy pot for scalding milk
• A big pot for sterilizing jars
• A small igloo cooler or other insulated container

Making yogurt isn’t hard, but it takes care to make sure you don’t introduce undesirable bacteria into your little experiment.  I’m not going to repeat Dr. Fankhauser’s excellent instructions in detail, but here’s the gist.  You sterilize the jars, and scald the milk.  Then you mix a little yogurt with the milk (about 1/4 cup per quart of milk), and let it incubate for 3-24 hours in a cooler filled with warm water.  A shorter incubation period makes a sweeter yogurt; a longer period makes a tangier and more probiotic one.

My first go-round, I used Natural By Nature organic milk and Butterworks Farm Yogurt and incubated it for 4 hours, and it was delicious and sweet.  The second time, I used Evans Yogurt and Ronnybrook Farm Creamline Milk with the cream on the top to see if I could get yogurt with yogurt cream on top. No dice.  This time I incubated for 8 hours and it came out much tarter and softer, with a lot more whey.  Interestingly, it seems very similar to the yogurt I’ve bought from Ronnybrook Farm before, so I wonder if the differences have to do with the milk itself as well as the incubation time.  More experimentation clearly needs to be done.  If anyone tries this at home, do report back.

You can easily make Greek yogurt from the yogurt you make.  You just put yogurt in a strainer lined with cheesecloth overnight, with a bowl for the liquid to drip into.  Or you can even tie the four corners of a piece of cheesecloth together and hang it from an open cabinet door (again with the bowl underneath, who knew there was so much water in yogurt?).  Then add your favorite jam and eat.  Take that, Total Yogurt!