Tuesday, April 1, 2014

DIY -- Yogurt

I love yogurt for two things but it's so popular that it's kind of expensive.  I got this recipe off the internet.  You can get 16 quarts of yogurt out of one quart of yogurt and 4 gallons of milk.
With 16 quarts of yogurt costing $48 and 4 gallons of milk costing $20, spending $23 for 16 quarts of yogurt is so economical you're crazy not to do it.
Buy two little boxes you can use in a freezer that hold a cup each.
Buy 4 one-quart jars with screw-on lids.
Buy 1 quart plain non-fat yogurt WITH ACTIVE CULTURES.  I use Dannon.  YMMV.
Buy 1 GALLON milk, fat content your choice.
Go home.
Measure out 1 cup yogurt and put it one of the little boxes.  Do that two more times.  Put them in the freezer.
Turn the oven on to 150 to 200 degrees.
Measure one quart milk into a saucepan.  Start it heating about level 4.
Take one quarter cup of yogurt out of the tub and put the tub in the fridge.
Put the gallon jug of milk in the fridge.
Go upstairs and find some old towels that are clean.
Bring them downstairs.
When the milk has just started to bubble, turn off the burner and pour one cup of milk into a cup measure.
Wait 5-10 minutes.  The milk you took out of the saucepan should be pretty warm but if it's too hot, it will kill the active cultures in the yogurt. 
Mix the yogurt into the cup of milk very thoroughly.  This is called inoculating the milk.
Pour the inoculated milk into the saucepan and then pour that into a quart jar.
Put the lid on the quart jar.
Wrap it in towels, two or three layers of them.  I sometimes use a beach blanket.
Turn off the oven.
Put the jar in the oven and close the door.
Leave in place up to 12 hours.
So obviously you can't do this if you have bread to bake or a chicken to roast.
The best thing is to leave it overnight.
In the morning put that jar of yogurt in the fridge -- if you don't eat it right away.
That night you can start making the next quart of yogurt.
Turn the gallon of milk into yogurt and next week I'll give you a recipe to use your yogurt on.
© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

No comments:

Post a Comment