Making Your Own Yoghurt

[Sue]

Hi
I've been using the easiyo for ages but the mixes have gone up again and I thought about going back to making my own.
Here the easiyo container comes in really useful, I filled the inner container with just under a litre of organic UHT semi-skimmed, added 2 tbsp of starter yoghurt and 2tbsp of dried milk powder and gently mixed together Filled the outer container with boiling water as per the easiyo and left it overnight. Result - a great success. It was quite thick but I wanted Greek style yoghurt so strained it and now have a lovely carton of really thick yoghurt.
This has halved the price for me and its only a bit more of a faff than usual.
I shall be making a batch of scones with the left over whey tomorrow.
best
Sue

[marigold007]

Hi Sue, mind sharing your scone recipe?

[Alison]

I too have an Easiyo and have been thinking about making my own from scratch for ages but never got around to it and keep forgetting to buy the UHT milk. May pick some up at the weekend and give it a go, especially as I've noticed today that my alpine strawberries are flowering so I'll be able to have nice sweet berries with yoghurt for lunch again soon.

[Scottishnewbie]

Hi
I've been using the easiyo for ages but the mixes have gone up again and I thought about going back to making my own.
Here the easiyo container comes in really useful, I filled the inner container with just under a litre of organic UHT semi-skimmed, added 2 tbsp of starter yoghurt and 2tbsp of dried milk powder and gently mixed together Filled the outer container with boiling water as per the easiyo and left it overnight. Result - a great success. It was quite thick but I wanted Greek style yoghurt so strained it and now have a lovely carton of really thick yoghurt.
This has halved the price for me and its only a bit more of a faff than usual.
I shall be making a batch of scones with the left over whey tomorrow.
best
Sue

i spend a fortune on yog for the kids so i am really interested in this though never heard of it before. can i just buy the easiyo? where do i buy the starter yoghurt from?

[Sue]

Hi Scottishnewbie and welcome to the vine.

Lakeland stock the easiyo stuff and an outer and inner pot would cost £13.99 to buy now. I just used it as it was to hand but if you had a big wide necked Thermos you could get an inner container in that might work as well?
I used to have an electronic yoghurt maker, same principle and these are around still, around £20 I think.

There are other methods for making yoghurt and I googled around a fair bit to find a fail safe method I could be bothered to do every week which didn't involve heating milk and faffing with a thermometer (I know that would fall by the wayside after a couple of goes!). So to do it from cold you need the heat treated UHT milk.

To get a starter you just need to buy a small pot of live natural yogurt, I used Yeo valley. And to be really miserly I've frozen the half I haven't used yet. On the yoghurt discussions I read on the web it says you can use your own previously made yoghurt to start the next lot and so on but it gradually weakens and you have to get in some more to start the process again. I've just made a second lot with UHT whole milk this time and my own starter and that is thicker and has worked fine. So my second lot using non-organic milk and my own starter has cost 79p for 750 ml of yoghurt. (You can just about get 1 litre of milk in the easiyo container but it's brimming so I froze the remaining 250ml to build up a stock for a new lot of yoghurt).

Any btw add any flavourings and fruit after you've yogged it, advice is it doesn't work this way. To add to my penny pinching ways I eat it with fruit compote which I keep in small pots in the freezer, all fruit from the allotment or hedgerows, that has been sweetened so you then don't need to add any sugar to the yoghurt.

Although I eat a lot of yoghurt I still make icecream, it works out cheaper as I've got hens and eggs are "so-called" free, I can make 10 portions of icecream for the cost of an 89p carton of cream, a little sugar and vanilla. Now if only I could keep a cow on my allotment....

best wishes and good luck with the yoghurt making.
Sue

[Sue]

Marigold007

Me replying again to give the scone recipe, which worked well, I think next time I'll make them a bit bigger, the recipe says makes 16 and I got 24.... so a bit flat but very tasty.

I used HFW's recipe from The Family Cookbook

450 self-raising flour plus extra for dusting the work surface
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
100g butter
100g caster sugar
125g sultanas
milk or a mixture of milk and natural yoghurt, or buttermilk about 275-300ml

Preheat the oven to 230c/gas mark 8

Sift the flour into the mixing bowl along with the salt and baking powder.
Cut the butter into little cubes and add to the flour. Rub the butter into the flour with your fingertips until the mix looks like sand.

Tip in the caster sugar and the sultanas and give everthing a good stir.
Using a palette knife stir in the milk until you have a slightly sticky, rough mass of dough, you might not need all the milk.

Turn the dough out on to a lightly floured work surface. With the rolling pin pres the dough gently into a round about 2cm thick. Dip the pastry cutter in flour and use it to stamp out as many scones as possible. Gather up the trimmings, press them together and cut out more scones until you've used up all the dough.

Lightly sprinkle a baking sheet with flour. Place the scones on the baking sheet and bake for about 10-12 minutes until golden brown.

Enjoy!
Sue

[Nicos]

I'm glad you brought up the subject of home-made yog!!!!

It's fairly difficult to find much of a choice of live yogs over here- and those I've so far found are the gelatinous type- not the liquidy/greek yog type.

Sooo...I've brought over some live yog from the UK esp with the intention of making my own!
problem is I couldn't find my yog maker in the attic- but I recall peeps talking about making it in a flask.

So on the back of this thread- can anyone suggest quite how to make it using either fresh milk or UHT and no powdered milk??????
I do have a flask I can use!

[marigold007]

I made a yogurt post on my blog last year when I tried making yogurt in a jar, wrapped in a towel over the radiator. It worked well and I used regular whole milk. I think semi-skimmed works the best. Here's a link to my post, which has a link in it of a person making it in a thermos flask:

Marigold Memoirs: How I learned to love my curds and whey.

[Nicos]

Thanks for that Marigold!!!

Can't wait to try it out!!!

[marigold007]

It is lurv-a-ly, in my best British accent. Better than many store-bought ones!

By the way, thanks for the recipe Sue. I'd try it today but I have an apple and elderberry crumble to eat my way through first!!

[Printemps]

I too love yogurt and for years I just used a flask, whereas now I use a yoghurt maker, bought on French ebay for 7euros, which makes 8 individual pots at a time from a litre of milk. I tend to heat my milk and simmer it for 20 mins or so to reduce it and produce a thicker yoghurt.

I also use Yourgourmet powder starters, as I reguarly have a visitor who is lactose intolerant, so cannot use the normal cows milk yogurt as a starter. For this reason I also use goat's milk too.

I have to say I didn't realise that Greek yoghurt was made by straining the yoghurt to get rid of the whey. In that case, I may be able to make my visitor cow's milk yoghurt, then strain off the lactose-laden whey. I'll experiment on her the next time she comes!!

[Scottishnewbie]

Sue, many thanks for your brilliant information. I tried seeing if anyone had the easiyog thing on freecycle but no luck so far so think i may have to shell out and buy one! suspect it'll be well worth it though! and btw, thanks for your welcome -- i really must get round to doing the introduction bit....but too busy reading all those posts and getting excited about trying new things!

Laura

[Sue]

Hi
Have now been experimenting with making yoghurt cheese. I drained a batch till it was really thick and flavoured with salt and black pepper. Must bring some herbs home from the allotment to try a herby version. It's very good, quite like philadelphia.
best wishes
Sue

[redkoatz]

I had a go at making my own yoghurt with a yoghurt machine I got on Amazon (4.5 stars review)

I followed the instructions thus.

Heat the semi skimmed milk to 70c for 15 seconds ( note a wiki I later found said do not go above 85c as it burns proteins and sugars, but I wasn't aware at the time)

Allow the milk to cool below 50c ( the wiki I later found said don't go lower than 32c as normal bacteria can start to grow ?? I suppose?)

Add the milk and 2 teaspoons of Greek yogurt to the yoghurt machine, placing the innerlid and outer lid in place. ( the wiki also says the fresher the yoghurt the better and make sure it contains live bacteria, and also stir the milk and yoghurt to distribute the bacteria)
I assumed all greek yogurt will contain it? But the manual that cane with the machine didn't give me this information, the wiki did.

Let it be for 8 hours

Sieve the yoghurt to remove fluid ( I used a rather expensive chef sieve called bullion strainer , which has fine holes like a mosin sieve or cheese cloth?

Whisk, to make thick creamy greek yogurt.

Conclusion, it looked like yoghurt, but it was more like a yoghurt drink.
Could it be 2 teaspoons wasn't enough, like some responses I got on Amazon questions suggest?
Could it be because the yoghurt was opened 24 hours previously?
Could it be because I didn't stir?
Maybe 8 hours isn't enough?
Maybe I overheated ( above 85c) ? Or let it cool below 32c?

Regardless can I get some clarification? I want to make a second try , I'm hoping for the same consistency as store bought Greek whipped yoghurt.
I want to know which milk ( preferably healthy) p
lease don't suggest live cultures. 6 pounds GBP for 3 live cultures is absurd, and goes against the satisfaction of being self sufficient.
Can I make yoghurt infinitely, without ever needing to buy fresh yoghurt?

Be as comprehensive as you like, I'll read everything

[veggiechicken]

Just a few suggestions - use full cream milk - not semi-skimmed.
Use a live yogurt like Yeo valley - natural, not flavoured!
You can reuse your own yogurt as a start a few times but then its best to buy a shop yogurt to start again.