Making my own Greek style yogurt

As we move forward in this project, the challenges in terms of reducing our packaging are increasing.  At this point, most of the things that we are buy are in bulk or from specialty stores (butcher, cheese shop, bakery).  The only items being bought with packaging are:  pasta (in a cardboard box; recyclable), vegetable oil (in a plastic bottle; recyclable), butter (in metallized wrapping; to trash), margarine (in plastic container, recyclable), mushrooms (blue non-recyclable plastic container; to trash) and yogurt (plastic container; recyclable).   Since the goal of our project is reducing waste, reducing what we put to recycling is also our part of the objective.  I noticed that our large yogurt containers were going to recycling every week.  My husband figures that since we have switched from individual non-recyclable yogurt containers to larger recyclable containers, that should be enough.   Good step honey, but I think we can do more.  Several of my colleagues at work told me that they or their family members (mothers, grandmothers) make or have made their own yogurt.  It sounded easy enough.  Heck, if Grandma can do it, so can I, right?  The main steps to making yogurt are:

• Heating milk to 180 F
• Adding fresh yogurt (which contains active bacteria)
• Incubating at 110 F for 8-10 hours

Three simple steps.  The process is indeed simple, with the exception of the incubation at 110 F.  Some people use ovens that can be set at 110 F.  This is not an option for me.  Another option is to put the heated yogurt in the oven with the lights on.  Unfortunately, in my case, the oven lights are not hot enough.  This left me with a challenge on the incubation.  I decided to use my crockpot.  My first experiment showed that when the crockpot was set at “LOW”, the water reached a temperature of 125 F.  Too hot!  This temperature would kill our beautiful bacteria.  I decided to try using it anyways and turning it on intermittently.  Over 8 hours.  This was going to be a full time endeavor for my Easter Sunday.  Good thing my husband was away on a business trip.

Step 1 was heating the milk.  You will need a thermometer to measure the temperature of the milk throughout the process.  I used a candy thermometer that I already had but a quick read thermometer is better.

Since this was my first try and I didn’t want to waste a lot of a milk, I used 250 ml of milk.

Some websites suggested heating the milk to 180 – 200 F but I was only able to get the milk to 185 F:

It is important to keep stirring the milk to avoid it scalding on the bottom of the pot and to prevent formation of a skin.  Once heated, leave the milk to cool to 113-115 F.  Once the milk is sufficiently cooled, you can add your yogurt.  One website suggested leaving the starter yogurt at room temperature overnight to get more active bacteria.  I only left 1 tbsp of plain yogurt on the counter for 4 hours but it still seemed to work.  It is important to have fresh yogurt as your base.  Alternatively, you can use yogurt starter.  I added 1 tsp of yogurt to the milk.  I read that you should whisk in the yogurt to a small part of the milk and then add to full quantity.  Another website said that this was not necessary.

Then you can place the yogurt – milk mixture in your incubator to target 105-110 F.

I placed a towel over the crockpot to keep the heated water warm longer.

It stayed at the right temperature most of the time but there were excursions in my case due to my manual heating operation.  Sometimes the temperature went higher than 110 F and sometimes it went lower than 105 F.  This is not ideal.  The fermentation will still take place but it will taken longer if the temperature drops lower.

After 8 hours, I took a peak at the mixture.  It looked like curdled milk.

I was becoming quite concerned that my experiment was a failure.

Then I put the yogurt in a tea towel to drain off the liquid.

This process took about 30 minutes, although I think I should have left it longer.  I then whisked the yogurt and added some honey:

Voila! I actually enjoyed it the following day with some blueberries:

While it wasn’t as easy to make yogurt as some people had told me it would be, it did work and it tasted surprisingly good.  Maybe I still need Grandma to come over and help me.  Much to my husband’s chagrin, I intend to try and make yogurt again, using a towel inside the crock pot to keep the temperature lower.  I can hear my husband grumbling in the background…

Challenge for the week:  Try to make your own yogurt.  It is an interesting experience and it will save you some money as well.  Maybe your husband will be more on board with it than mine!