Homemade Yogurt

Don't let the title fool you. Whenever someone finds out that I make my own yogurt they look at me in awe. It's actually super easy and takes nothing but some milk and some live cultures to get started. 

If you look at yogurt in the store it's loaded with sugar. Even plain, no flavor yogurt has sugar in it. 

It's mostly natural sugar but they add it through the modified corn starch and pectin.

Now the other thing is the fact that it has pectin, modified corn starch, and gelatin? Why the heck would you need those things in  yogurt when it thickens itself?

Besides all the unnecessary ingredients yogurt is expensive and kids love it. 

In fact my daughter won't eat store bought yogurt any more. If I do buy it for a trip or a activity or something she won't eat all of it. If I put some of the homemade stuff in a bowl with fruit she asks for seconds. 

So, how do you make it? Here's how. 

Printable Version

First you will need

A large pot

Mason Jar (preferably wide mouth, I do three at a time)

Thermometer

Milk

Life Cultures (I buy a small thing of plain yogurt at the store) 

Now normally you only have to go to the store once to get your own yogurt started unless your son eats all the yogurt before you can save a couple tablespoons. 

Next you're going to pour the milk into the mason jars.

Place the filled mason jars into the empty pot. 

So you don't burn your milk and are able to heat it up more accurately you want to do a water bath. This is accomplished by simply filling the pot with cold water. Don't fill it to the top or it will boil over. Fill it about 2 inches from the top with water. 

Stick your thermometer in the milk and turn the burner on medium heat.

Meanwhile take out 2 Tablespoons of yogurt for every mason jar of yogurt you are making. You want to allow it to get to room temperature.

 Heat the milk to 185˚F 
Remove from heat and place in a cold water bath. 

You want to bring the temperature of the milk down between 120 F and 90 F.   Don't let it go below 90 F. 110 F is optimal

Now add your 2 Tablespoons of room temperature yogurt. Mix it in really well. I like to use a whisk. The better mixed the better the yogurt. Some people like to put it in a blender. 

Once you have added your live cultures (yogurt) put a lid tightly on your yogurt. You now want it to incubate. The best way I have found to do this is take your cooler, fill it with hot water from the faucet and place your jars of yogurt in there and cover. Now let it sit for 7 hours. The longer you let it sit the thicker and tangier the yogurt.

Here's your yogurt. Now It's pretty runny. I personally don't really like normal yogurt. I'm more of a fan of greek yogurt. Plus you can use greek yogurt for all sorts of baking and cooking instead of using sour cream.  So I like to strain it.

Take a small bowl and set your colander in it. You want the colander to sit on it and not in it. Place some cheesecloth in your colander.

 Pour the yogurt into the cheesecloth. You will instantly here the whey draining from the yogurt. The longer you let it drain the thicker the yogurt. I usually drain mine for about 3 hours.

This is what your yogurt will decrease to after you drain out all the whey. You can keep the whey to cook with. Sometimes I do sometimes I just dump it down the drain.


Here's the final result.

Now just add some fresh fruit and honey and it is ready to eat. My kids love strawberries, honey, and some vanilla added to theres.