Home Made Yoghurt

[Dave70]

There are other reasons for not wanting to use dairy other than lactose issues. Cruelty to animals is one at the top of my list.

Having fluid gently drawn from an appendage twice daily whilst eating constitutes cruelty?

Call me a masochist then.

 

[TimT]

Ah. Thanks for the clarification NC.

I think the super-long pasteurisation time may have had something to do with encouraging the separation: you'll notice when you heat milk to near boiling it develops a frothy head that can be scooped off and discarded. And of course the 'skin' that develops on hot chocolates is well known.

Indeed, 4/5 hours is not normally a very long culturing time for yoghurt.

 

[TimT]

Going to have to look up the cat-milk reference!

I've heard of yoghurt and/or cheese from cow milk, ass milk, goat milk, sheep milk, buffalo milk, and, yes, even human breast milk. But not cats!

You could also try making yoghurt from man-breast milk from a lactating male... though they're hard to come by, and anyway a doctor friend told me she thinks the substance produced by lactating males is entirely different to that produced by lactating females.

 

[NewtownClown]

Loved fermented camel milk in East Africa and had a "beer" in northern Nigeria that I was sure had been either fermented or soured with goats milk...

 

[TimT]

Getting obscure now, but some species of ants have been known to farm and 'milk' aphids - stroking them with their ant feelers to make them produce a substance that they then drink. Imagine using that in a cheese! But it would be hard to get (Charles Darwin once tried to simulate the effect by tickling aphids with a hair, because he was that kinda guy) and anyway, it would probably be dud for cheese (only mammals lactate) but much better for brewing (it's a type of honeydew, gathered from plants).

 

[NewtownClown]

Indeed, 4/5 hours is not normally a very long culturing time for yoghurt.

I went with 4/5 hours as that was a time generally indicated in the links Wolfy ( a BIG shout out and thanks to Wolfy for the tutorial, by the way) provided as well as in my own "independant" research.
Whilst it is tart and has bite, I will definitely leave it longer (overnight) for more. In that respect, is it reasonable to assume the critters are now dormant and could be revived to continue the job by warming it back up? I won't do it with this batch for I have "double-dipped" with a spoon a few times this morning already :icon_drool2:

 

[TimT]

Ah. Well I generally see 8-12 hours as the time frame, sometimes up to as long as two days.

Cold does calm the critters down: yoghurt keeps in the fridge for up to a week, in the freezer for up to a month. Thermophilic (heat loving) culture that thrives in temps of about 40 degrees celsius probably calms down a bit and becomes dormant at temps of 25/20/15, but I'm not entirely sure about that. Fridge and freezer are generally recommended.

Bitter yoghurt often results from a high quantity of culture to milk, and that may account for the short culturing time too.

 

[benno1973]

We tend to do 5-6 hours, although I'm often lazy and forgetful, so it can go up to 12 hours before I fridge it. I find the longer it incubates, the more the 'tang'. Also, ours always gets a small amount of whey separating at the top which we either mix back in, or strain off if we want a thicker yoghurt...

 

[Bribie G]

Just finished my last jar of yogurt from my original post of a few weeks ago, it was as good as the first one. Very pleased, and glad to be into this new "hobby", Colesworths can bite their bums with their $6 rip off.

I see that Aldi Just Organic plain yogurt 1kg is only $4.30 - that's where all my bottles came from.

 

[NewtownClown]

Is there any difference to using full fat powdered milk as opposed to low fat as per many blogs/recipes state?

 

[Airgead]

I have seen a lot of recipes recommending low fat powdered milk and I believe the reasoning is to increase the amount of milk solids present which makes for a firmer set without adding extra fat.

Using full fat milk powder would increase both milk solids and fat.

Cheers
Dave

 

[lael]

I used full fat - I like creamy yoghurt - not sure if there is a difference apart from that?

 

[TimT]

Again I think it all depends. My vilii yoghurt culture contains several lactobacilli types, including 'subspecies cremoris', which looooooooves the creamy party of milk. (Annoying, because I do too). Since I used unhomogenised milk, I often find floating on the top of a mature vilii culture what is essentially mascarpone cheese - and what's below is essentially a buttermilky/light yoghurty mixture. But maybe other cultures don't care so much about light milk/full fat milk.

 

[NewtownClown]

Cheers for the feedback, guys

 

[of mice and gods]

So has anyone tried to culture yakult type drinking yoghurt/fermented milk?

I've been thinking with the amount of beer i drink and other unhealthy habits I need to get a bit more of the pro-biotics going into my system. I did notice a significant difference when eating my home fermented sauerkraut, so I thought culturing a bottle of yakult into a 2L milk bottle would give me an ample supply to have a glass of in the morning or other times when my guts are being a bit unpredictable.

Al

 

[lael]

just an update - did another batch last weekend in the braumiser and it turned out beautifully. Thick, creamy and delicious - half was notably better than the other half though...

4x 2kg tubs
brought coles full cream milk to 85/88C for 20 mins, put in sink to chill to 40C, split to 4 tubs, put in 1.25-1.5 cups of milk powder and mixed. Set in brau at 41C for 4 hours (automated) and left until morning (would have finished around 2am or so - lid was left off, so would have dropped temp after setting). Set beautifully, very creamy.

I was using devondale full cream powdered milk, but ran out and used coles powdered milk in 2 of the tubs. There is a noticable difference between the two. So - normal Coles full cream + Devondale powdered is a winner. 2L milk, 1.25-1.5 cups powdered milk (so slightly less than 2L milk...).

I used a split of five am greek and jalna biodynamic as my starter cultures. I upped the powdered milk to compensate for the lack of the Paul's Gold as they didn't have any at either coles or woollies at the time. Worked well!

 

[Bribie G]

Thanks for updating the thread, lael.

I'm onto my fourth batch of yog, made quite a nice batch as suggested by Florian with just with long life full cream milk plus full cream milk powder and a tub of Coles own brand plain yog as the culture.

However my absolute best results so far are my latest batch.

Manning Valley Farmers unhomogenised milk plus a good dose of Aldi full cream milk powder and a kilo tub of Aldi "Just Organic" plain yog to make six kilo tubs, in the Crown Urn at 40 degrees. I note that the Aldi stuff has acidophilus as well as a number of other strains, whilst the Bornhoffen only mentions thermophilic strains such as Strep. Therm. Pity they lost the plot and sold out to industrial strains. As mentioned, Bornhoffen used to be called Bornhoffen Acidophilus but no more.

Really rich and almost like a cream cheese, and so much yummy butterfat that the tops of the tubs are covered with a thin disc of cruncy cultured butter. Also it's not eye watering sour, very well balanced.

Using a whole tub of Aldi is good value as it gets me an extra plastic bottle for batches, to give away or reuse, and it doesn't bump the cost up much when split among six kilos.

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

Glot....WTF are you on about..

How is the fairly simple task of milking a cow twice daily that causes them no stress an issue of animal cruelty....having been around dairies I think your talking out your arse.

Its not like the farmer puts a gun to the cows head and demands milk...

Milking cows is about as cruel as making a 5yr old eat vegetables.

 

[Edak]

So I wanted to chime in on this yogurt thing, not the animal stuff rather the actual topic.
I got a easiyo and did my first batch and it was wonderful. I want to keep the process simple so the Mrs starts to do it herself, thus I didn't plan on using braumeister as she won't go near it. I want to go ahead and use powdered milk as that's super easy, and is the majority of the easiyo product anyway.

Here is an interesting question though, has anyone used flavour and aroma hops in their yogurt? Galaxy yogurt? Would such a thing be possible?

 

[TimT]

You probably could Edak. Not sure if the lactobacilli would like the hops, or vice versa (hops help preserve beer from unwanted bacterial influences after all). Most discussion about yoghurt flavouring, in my discussion, usually assumes the flavouring to be strawberry, apple, chocolate, something like that....