The first time I made yogurt was in a college science lab. My whole class was creeped out when we learned that bacteria, when added to warm milk, eat the lactose in the milk and the waste they produce becomes yogurt.
Yep, thats right, yogurt is actually bacteria "poop."
Part of our grade in the class was dependant upon us eating the yogurt we made. We added jam and honey to it but we still "ewww"-ed at the idea of eating somethings waste.
Fast forward a few years and I started seeing yogurt recipes on the internet. I noticed several references to homemade yogurt on the
"Crunchy Mamas" BBC board (which is my favorite crunchy info resource, those ladies are hardcore and make me look sort of soggy). A lot of the ladies said that they cook their yogurt on the stove and then pour it into Mason jars and let it develop in an ice chest filled with towels. That kind of sounded like a lot of work.... but then I saw
THIS conversation on BBC that referenced a Crockpot Yogurt recipe. It looked a bit easier because the whole thing is made right there in the crockpot. There is no transfering yogurt-liquid to jars or bulky ice chests involved. The instructional I ended up using came from the website
crockpot365, but it was pretty spread out and I wanted something I could read over in the kitchen so I condensed it down to one page and printed it. I have made the yogurt exactly three times and its excellant! It does take about 14 hours total to heat the milk, cool it down again, add the yogurt, and then let it develop. But really only about 10 minutes of time is hands-on. When I made it the first time, I was a bit disappointed that it came out kind of "watery" but after putting it in the fridge for a few hours, it hardened a bit. And after I added some fruit and honey, it tasted
exactly better
than store-bought yogurt. At the request of a couple co-workers and friends, I'm posting the one page chart here, so feel free to print and give it a try if you'd like! (click on it for a bigger printable version)
I really like the thicker, greek style yogurt. For those who haven't had greek yogurt, the only difference between normal yogurt and greek yogurt is that greek has a lot of the liquid drained out of it. This "condenses" the yogurt so its very thick and dense and you get more protein-per-bite. When the girls were newborns and I was too busy to even eat a bowl of cereal in the morning, I'd down a greek yogurt and it would stay in my tummy and keep me full until lunch. All three times I've made yogurt in my crockpot, I've drained it to get that greek-style. But then I learned something interesting the other day. The liquid that is drained out of the yogurt is actually the "whey," and contains a lot of the healthy bacteria that are so good for our digestive systems (and quite a bit of the protein too). So I think the next time I make it, I'll leave the liquid in. If you drain the whey, SAVE IT. Use it to cook with, in your soup, pancakes, muffins, etc. Its got lots of good stuff in it! This is what the whey looks like:
Here's how much yogurt I got after draining the liquid from one batch of yogurt. (Did you know that yogurt companies add gelatin and/or food starch to their yogurt to make it thicker? BLAH! Who wants that in their yogurt?!)
It really does makes a lot. Almost too much for our family of four. Its a good thing we eat a LOT of yogurt. I usually leave a small container of plain, unflavored yogurt in the fridge for cooking (its a good replacement for sour cream or milk), and then sweeten the rest with fruit, jam, or honey. At the end of the week if I haven't used it up, I throw the leftover into popsicle molds and pop it in the freezer. The girls love it that way best!
This particular batch I mixed in a container of strawberry freezer jam. Another time I did honey and vanilla which was pretty good too.
Oh, and I forgot to mention the best thing about making yogurt at home. Its really really really cheap. Wayyyy cheaper than buying store yogurt. Like 0.02 cents per ounce vs 0.27 cents per ounce of YoBaby (we were buying that for the girls before). Give it a try! Its a fun experiment if nothing else!
Happy Yogurt-ing!
