Making Yogurt at home.

So it is Earth Day 2011. How will I be spending it? Well, since the high is 50 degrees, and its raining, and the ground is so saturated that our sump pump is running, I am pretty well confined to the indoors. And since today is also Good Friday, I am also stuck with my 2 school age children, and the baby. Sounds like the perfect time to clean out the laundry room. And make yogurt.

I started off on my home made yogurt making adventure about a year ago, after reading about a dozen blogs about how easy and cost effective it is. Now I will be adding one more blog.

Making home made yogurt really takes nothing more than milk, a little starter mix, a kitchen thermometer, a heating pad, and a lot of faith. And no matter how easy the other blogs try to make it seem, its way easier than that.

The basic procedure I follow is, heat 1/2 gallon of organic 2% milk slowly stiring occasionally, be careful not to boil, until it reaches 180 degrees, and let it sit at that temperature for 5 minutes. This sterilizes the milk. Then let it cool to 110-112 degrees.

While your milk is cooling, you need to sterilize the container you are going to be making your yogurt in. I use my pampered chef batter bowl
To sterilize, I boil water in a large soup pot and submerge my bowl for a few minutes.
When my bowl is cool, I add a little starter to it.

Starter is the gift that keeps on giving. I have heard that you can use store bought plain yogurt, but I have always used starter powder that you can get at the coop or at the health food store. Once you have plain home made yogurt, you can reserve some back to use as your starter next time. I usually save about a half a jelly jar full or so, keep it in the fridge and it will be ready for you the next time!

So, now your milk is cool, add it to the bowl containing your starter, and mix it up gently with a wisk.

Now your work is done. All you have to do is keep your yogurt at the right temperature and wait for it to ferment.

This is where people make it way more difficult than it needs to be. I have heard of doing it in the oven, in coolers, dumping out water, adding water, using special expensive yogurt making machines... I use a heating pad. Similar to this.

Just wrap it around your bowl, and then I wrap large bathroom towels around it for insulation. Don't forget to insert your kitchen thermometer before wrapping everything up, so you can monitor the temp.

Then you let it sit. At least 8 hours, keeping it around 110-112 degrees.  The longer you let it sit the better. I usually let mine go over night. When the time is up, just unwrap everything, and put your bowl in the fridge. You are done. Nothing to it! Your end product won't be quite as thick as the store bought version, but what ever. Its way healthier. I usually eat mine with frozen berries and a bit of honey to sweeten it up.

So, lets analyze a little bit.

ingredients in yoplait yogurt: Site your source! :-)

Cultured Pasteurized Grade A Low Fat Milk, Sugar, Strawberries, Modified Corn Starch, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Nonfat Milk, Kosher Gelatin, Citric Acid, Tricalcium Phosphate, Natural Flavor, Pectin, Colored with Carmine, Vitamin A Acetate, Vitamin D3.

Yummy! If you know what Tricalcium phosphate is, please let me know. Acutally, don't. I don't care. I'm not eating it. Oh! and look! Sugar AND High Fructose Corn Syrup. Nice.
 
One Cup of Yoplait yogurt comes complete with a plastic container, foil lid, and goes for the whopping price of $.79

Ingredients in Stonyfield farms organic yogurt: Site your source! :-)

CULTURED PASTEURIZED ORGANIC LOW FAT MILK, NATURALLY MILLED ORGANIC SUGAR, ORGANIC BLUEBERRIES, PECTIN, NATURAL FLAVOR, ORGANIC ELDERBERRY JUICE FROM CONCENTRATE (FOR COLOR), VITAMIN D₃. CONTAINS OUR EXCLUSIVE BLEND OF SIX LIVE ACTIVE CULTURES: S. THERMOPHILUS, L. BULGARICUS, L. ACIDOPHILUS, BIFIDUS, L. CASEI, AND L. RHAMNOSUS.

One cup of Stonyfield farm Organic yogurt, complete with plastic cup and foil lid is about $1.29

Cost of home made yogurt,
1/2 gallon organic milk = About $3.50
Starter: Free! It was waiting for me in my fridge! But, if you have to buy starter you can get it for about $11. for a whole bottle that will last you for forever, or at least a good long while.

Ingredients in homemade yogurt?
Milk. My starter powder contains nonfat milk solids, whey, and 3 kinds of the probiotic bacteria.


1/2 gallon is 64 ounces, and a typical cup of yogurt is about 6 ounces, so I will have about 10 servings of yogurt per batch, for a grand total of about $.35 a serving. And since I am not a math wiz, I will spell it out. That is about 1/2 the cost of conventional yogurt, about 1/4 the cost of organic. Talk about bang for your buck!