Home Made Yoghurt

[Wolfy]

While it's not really 'brew food', and I don't pretend to be an expert, but since Aldi have Yoghurt Makers on special this weekend, I thought I'd post info/pics on how I make yoghurt at home.

I've had the best results making Yoghurt at home since using my Aldi-urn and STC-1000 temperature controller:

and 'extra creamy' milk:

As with brewing, since we'll be growing cultures of micro-organisms, cleaning and sanitation is important, I usually sanitize with boiling water, so all spoons and jars and stuff are soaked in boiling water.

Yoghurt making steps:
1) Clean/sanatise container, I use a large size (4 to 500ml) glass jar

2) Mostly fill jar with milk, and add 2-3 spoons of powdered milk

3) Heat milk to 85C and hold for 20mins

4) Reduce temperature to about 40C (empty hot water from urn and fill with cold water).
5) Add yoghurt culture - 2 spoons yoghurt - to a small amount of the milk and stir, before adding to the jar.
Yoghurt cultures can be purchased online, but using a couple of spoons of supermarket-purchased commercial yoghurt works fine, pick a brand you like eating.

6) Hold temperature at about 44C for about 4 hours (anything between about 40 and 50C is fine, different cultures like different temperatures).
The cultures will have grown and the yoghurt set after 4 hours, but if you like it a bit more tart and acidic leave it a bit longer or even overnight.
7) Refrigerate yoghurt culture.

8) Add fruit, muesli or whatever stuff you like to eat with your yoghurt (like strawberry sauce).

By straining the yoghurt (Swiss Volle works well for this) you can make it thicker and more like cottage or cream cheese and use it in all ways you'd use cottage/cream cheese or even sour cream, I've even made 'healthy' cheese cakes with it.

Temperature control is not essential, steps 1-3 can be done in a saucepan on any normal stove, and 4-6 completed adequately by simply insulating the yoghurt/container.
I didn't want to make it sound complicated or hard, but additional reading and reference can be found here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/15/dining/15curi.html?_r=2
http://www.abc.net.au/local/recipes/2011/01/17/3114435.htm
http://extension.missouri.edu/publications...b.aspx?P=GH1183
http://www.ochef.com/r171.htm

 

[capretta]

ha, cool thanks for the pics too.. quick question, it appears you pasteurise your milk again at the start? have you had many off batches to require this step?

 

[Wolfy]

ha, cool thanks for the pics too.. quick question, it appears you pasteurise your milk again at the start? have you had many off batches to require this step?

No off-batches.
But this step is suggested in each of the recipes/links above, the first explains: "The heat alters the milks whey proteins and helps create a finer, denser consistency."

 

[capretta]

ok, thanks for the reply. B)

 

[benno1973]

Nice looking money shot there at the end Wolfy!

We make our own yoghurt, slightly less precise process, but still great results.

Nothing is sanitised, or to be honest, even washed after pulling it out of the cupboard. It probably makes the shelf life a little shorter, but between us and the kids we go through 2L of yoghurt in a week, so it's no loss. We've left it for 2 weeks and it still tastes fine. After 3 weeks it's smelling a little yeasty.

We don't hold at 85C - I'll need to try that to see if it makes a difference. Instead we bring it up to just below boiling and then let it cool on the stove top.

While we have yoghurt thermos containers to keep the little yoghurt critters happy, I remember my mum when I was a kid just used to wrap the jar in a towel and stick it in the linen cupboard to keep warm. 3-8 hours and it's done.

We buy yoghurt cultures from cheeselinks. Works out very price competitive and lasts for years, especially when you use a couple of spoons from your previous batch to restart the next batch. Each batch made from the culture can re-seed around 5-6 new generations.

 

[Wolfy]

We don't hold at 85C - I'll need to try that to see if it makes a difference. Instead we bring it up to just below boiling and then let it cool on the stove top.

I think that pretty-much achieves the same purpose, by the time you heat the milk to 'just below boiling' and then let it cool, it's spent enough time in that temperature range.

Previously I'd make it without precise temperature control (and different milk) - exactly how you make it - but never found the results to be quite how I wanted them, so that's why I've been doing it this way.

 

[Wolfy]

Strained yoghurt:

(Yoghurt cheese, labneh, or Greek yoghurt, depending on where you are from or marketing)

Add salted squeezed cucumber, lemon juice, garlic, some olive oil:

To make tzatziki (or call it one of many things depending on region)

Add herb and lemon spiced lamb, oven roasted potatoes, some salad and pita-bred:

... and call it dinner.

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

Nice looking money shot there at the end Wolfy!

We make our own yoghurt, slightly less precise process, but still great results.

Nothing is sanitised, or to be honest, even washed after pulling it out of the cupboard. It probably makes the shelf life a little shorter, but between us and the kids we go through 2L of yoghurt in a week, so it's no loss. We've left it for 2 weeks and it still tastes fine. After 3 weeks it's smelling a little yeasty.

We don't hold at 85C - I'll need to try that to see if it makes a difference. Instead we bring it up to just below boiling and then let it cool on the stove top.

While we have yoghurt thermos containers to keep the little yoghurt critters happy, I remember my mum when I was a kid just used to wrap the jar in a towel and stick it in the linen cupboard to keep warm. 3-8 hours and it's done.

We buy yoghurt cultures from cheeselinks. Works out very price competitive and lasts for years, especially when you use a couple of spoons from your previous batch to restart the next batch. Each batch made from the culture can re-seed around 5-6 new generations.

Spot the similarities with brewing yeast and yogurt culture

 

[Wolfy]

Spot the similarities with brewing yeast and yogurt culture

... and making cheese.

 

[Eggs]

ive had a few goes in the past, but not with a temperature controller. the results are always very thin, much like a drinking yogurt. Ive never found what went wrong.

 

[glenwal]

ive had a few goes in the past, but not with a temperature controller. the results are always very thin, much like a drinking yogurt. Ive never found what went wrong.

This has been my experience as well. Next go i am going to try using a better brand milk (i'm using the $1/L cheap stuff atm) - i'm wondering if the crap they dilute it with is thinning out the end result.

If that doesn't work (or if it does but i still want it thicker) , i'm going to try adding powered milk as per wolfy's post above. I'm assuming that will add in additional "solids" that will give a thicker end result.

 

[pk.sax]

Bring to a boil, let the cream rise out and turn the heat off before it departs the pot. Cool it down and seed with culture from last batch.

That's how we used to make it. Even get yummy fresh cream from it.

 

[benno1973]

We use cheapo milk, skim milk, expensive milk, whatever - I don't find that the brand/type of milk plays a huge role in how it turns out. The brand of yoghurt used as a starter does however. We used to eat this amazing greek yoghurt - was thick and delicious - and absolutely crap as a starter. Cheapo Brownes plain yoghurt was always a winner however. If the yoghurt's turning out runny, I'd suggest the following things...

1. Confirm that you're heating it to 85/90C at the start, as Wolfy mentioned this is an important step.
2. Add milk powder. I've never tried without, but my mum always used to do it, and most recipes I've seen do it.
3. Try a few different brands of yoghurt as starters. Make sure it's fresh. Some work, some don't.
4. Failing point 3, order some yoghurt culture from cheeselinks or somewhere.
5. Calibrate your thermometers to make sure you're holding temps at 40-45C.
6. Insulate the container and leave it for 8 hours once you've added the warm milk.

Failing that, I'm not sure what could be happening.

 

[Wolfy]

@Eggs, I found the same with my past experiments, but either the milk, addition of powdered milk or the tight temperature control does the trick.

Glen W I presume the same about the stuff in the cheap milk.
I've been added 3 spoons of powdered milk per 500ml of milk and the texture of the resulting yoghurt is exactly the same as the store-brought stuff. With cheaper milk or with less milk powder the yoghurt is a bit 'grainy' (as per photo in #7 of the OP) and there is more noticeable separation of the whey.

 

[Wolfy]

It's a bit hard to show 'texture' in a photo, but here is the yoghurt I made yesterday:

Smooth, creamy, solid, no excess whey ... taste and texture as good or better than the stuff you buy in the shop (even the kids are surprised how good it is).
Culture is 1 spoon of Gippsland Organic (essentially the same as Jalna) and 1 spoon of Ski Activ (has proto-biotic-stuff but not sure how that goes recultured at home), such cultures can be frozen in an ice-cube tray and used later (defrost slowly in a small amount of milk).

 

[WarmBeer]

What do you have your STC probe sitting in in picture #3?

Is it immersed in liquid, or just sitting dry in the additional jar?

 

[drsmurto]

Cheers for the simple pictorial Wolfy.

Stumbled on this thread out of boredom and was surprised to see how simple the process was.

More surprised to come to the realisation that i had everything needed to make yoghurt. My urn is an old fowlers preserving urn so the dial is in degrees (fahnrenheit) rather than arbitrary numbers so controlling temperature is very simple (thanks to the unit converter app).

Tweedvale milk, full cream, non-homogenised/permeate free (and has always been that way). It reminds me of the milk we used to get delivered when i was a tad younger, 5L icecream container on the front porch with coins inside. Milky would jog down the driveway, take the container back to his ute and ladle fresh, pure unpasteurised, unhomegenised milk into the container and carry it back. We went through 5L a day as my brother and I would drink/skoll it 1L at a time.

I have powdered milk which is used for the fruit loaf i make. Fridge always contains yoghurt.

Held at 43C for 5 hours.

Result is very nice, a good level of sourness and bite and thick enough to spoon out of the container. Had some on my cereal this morning and have some mixed with some of my boysenberries from last season for lunch.

 

[Wolfy]

What do you have your STC probe sitting in in picture #3?

Is it immersed in liquid, or just sitting dry in the additional jar?

Its in another jar immersed in water, now I just shove it in the water next to the yoghurt jar, its easier and likely to be accurate enough.

Stumbled on this thread out of boredom and was surprised to see how simple the process was.
...
Held at 43C for 5 hours.
...
Result is very nice, a good level of sourness and bite and thick enough to spoon out of the container.

Just takes a bit of time for it to culture, but other than that it's very easy to do.

Using different cultures and adjusting the culture temperature (some sources suggest to use a temperature up to 50C) and time (4-12 hours) will should you control the sourness/bite/flavour (and maybe texture) to get it exactly how you like it.

 

[wobbly]

Another good use for a Braumeister system (and/or the various clones) being able to control/program temperature and time very easily

Cheers

Wobbly

 

[brettprevans]

The missus made some yogurt last night using a similar method (incl milk powder). It was very tart (probably cause it was left out over night at temp), not grainy but a bit lumpy and tastes slightly like cheese.

Any thoughts on the cheese flavour?