100 Recipes - #82 Yogurt

[lillibet]

I follow crockpot365 and recently she posted this procedure for making yogurt in the slow-cooker. It seemed pretty easy, so I gave it a try.

The first time, it completely failed. At the end of the process I had...warm milk with a very slightly sour taste and a few lumps at the bottom. Not yogurt.

Undaunted, I tried again. After consulting some other yogurt recipes, I decided to try using the temperature probe on my slow-cooker to be sure I was getting the temps right and discovered that it takes my slow-cooker over four hours to get a half-gallon of milk to 185F. Then it took about 3.5 hours to get down to 110F, by which time I was very excited to go to bed.

But the next morning, when I unwrapped the towel, I had...YOGURT! I was interested in seeing how straining it would work, so I did that and found that while it works just fine if you really need solid, Greek-style yogurt, the unstrained stuff is just fine after a night in the fridge. So I probably won't bother most of the time. It tastes really good, even unsweetened, and we have plenty of honey and maple syrup if we want it sweeter.

Next time I want to try using the temp probe and cooking it on high. This was a bit of a hassle, but once I figure out the timing for my equipment, the actual work is amazingly simple and I'm hoping to make this a habit.

Comments

[pekmez.livejournal.com]

What kind of yogurt did you use as a starter? I have half a mind to try something like labne or skyr or Greek yogurt - i think to make stuff that comes out mostly like Stonyfield farms it doesn't seem worth it to me.

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

I just used Stonyfield. I would think you could start with anything with a live culture, or look for a starter--I bet Whole Foods probably stocks the powdered version.

[bookly.livejournal.com]

Ooooh, you tried it! Yay for being undaunted!

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I felt very intrepid.

[bookly.livejournal.com]

I'm so excited to try it now! (Although 'now' equates to 'after I buy the slow cooker I just stuck in my Amazon shopping cart'. :)

I mentioned it to Thinley, and he said, "Oh, yes, making yogurt is very easy"; I guess he grew up making it in Tibet. I'll give him some of mine and see how he likes it. He goes through quite a lot, and I don't think he's planning to work much this winter, so the extra pennies (or dollars) might be appreciated.

I got Jerry's recipe this morning, as well. He boils his milk just till it froths (a trick he learned from his mother-in-law), lets it cool down to 110, adds the starter, and then wraps the container in a heating pad and sticks it in a metal vase. He says it takes about six hours to ferment, and that boiling the milk does something to the proteins to make the yogurt smoother. Maybe I'll try it that way, if I ever need to buy a heating pad. (Amusingly, he has a dedicated heating pad for the kitchen; he uses it to make dosas as well as yogurt, and maybe some other things. I don't think I'll be cooking any South Indian food anytime soon, though.)