Tuesday, November 24, 2009
I made yogurt this past weekend. It was surprisingly easy!
I read around on the internet about how to make yogurt without a yogurt maker. I found this Epicurious article to be a helpful guide.
There are two ways to make yogurt, either with a bacteria starter or with a few spoonfuls of yogurt you already have so long as it has "active cultures." I decided to go the former route. I bought this Yogourmet yogurt bacteria starter at a health food store but have since seen at grocery stores.
The only other ingredient necessary is a litre of milk. Although I don't drink 2% milk, I used it for yogurt because I like my yogurt thicker. I got a good consistency with 2% milk.
The first sterilized a two glass jars and their lids I had by boiling them in a big pot for 15 mintues and then set them aside. Next I brought my milk to a boil, stirring occasionally so it didn't stick to the bottom of the pot. The milk needs to reach 180°F (a thermometre is helpful for this) to kill any bacteria that might be in it. As I don't have a microwave (like Megan does) and hadn't been using my oven that day, I turned it on low to heat it up while I was waiting for the milk to reach 180°F. After the milk has reached 180°F it needs to cool down to about 110°F.
Once the milk has cooled to 110°F ladle a small amount into one of the sterilized jars and dissolve the yogurt starter bacteria in it. The milk mustn't be to hot when the starter bacteria is added or else it will kill them. For this reason, after my oven was warm I turned the oven off. Stir the dissolved bacteria into the larger pot of milk. Once the bacteria has been well stirred in the larger pot the only thing left to do is to ladle it into the sterilized jars and incubate the jars.
To incubate the yogurt I place the jars in a casserole dish, wrapped them with dish towels and placed them in the oven with the light on. The Yogourmet package says that your yogurt can be ready in as little as 4.5 hours, but the longer you incubate the yogurt the thicker it will be. I left it incubating over night and went to see Ohbijou play.
The next morning I checked the consistency of my yogurt. Deciding it was amply thick I put it in the fridge for a little over an hour to set the yogurt and had it as part of my breakfast later that morning. It was delicious!
I tend to go through yogurt really fast. Next time I'm going to try making it using a few spoonfuls of this batch as a starter.
A friend of mine who can buy farm-fresh organic yogurt for $5.25/900mL asked me about the cost. The food thermometre I bought was $6.71 but it's reusable again and again. The Yogourmet starter bacteria was $4.28 for six 5mL packages that can make 1L of yogurt each, which works out to 71¢ per packet. Therefore the cost of 1L of yogurt (not counting the thermometre, electricity, time etc.) is equal to the cost of the starter (which would be a one-time cost if you then used yogurt as a starter), 71¢, plus the cost of milk you buy for a total cost of about $2.50-$4.00/1L depending on the milk you buy.Labels: food, music, November 2009, photos
posted by Vanessa at 11:04 PM
