Homemade yogurt

[Ice Cream]

High Lawn, right?  I may be imagining things, but I do find that milk makes a better yogurt than Garelick or Hood.

I also use an immersion blender to mix in the powdered milk.  I always feel bad/guilty dumping out the whey from the 1/2 batch that is strained.  I know there are good uses for it!

Yes, High Lawn.  I cannot tell the difference in milk, but I only use skim milk, and connaisseurs claim that is the worst tasting milk.  Since it makes no difference to me, I do not buy high lawn.

[hally]

I only use two tablespoons of yogurt as a starter, I read that it makes the bacteria work harder.

I use either skim or 1% usually from BJ's because it's super cheap, I use a whole gallon. I also use a good thermometer. Get to 185° then cool to 105° to 95° before putting the tempered two tbsps in. Leave for 10 hours I strain it for a long time in a nut milk bag in a strainer.

[Run Amok]

 Resurrecting this thread. I made yogurt today & experimented with 2% ultrafiltered milk. I have a 1 galon wide mouth yeti jar, which I successfully used for incubation. I preheated it with hot water and then poured in the 115 degree inoculated milk.

5 hours later it was very firm and leaking whey so i pulled it.

The curds are almost cheese like they are so firm. In one container I whisked it back together and it was a nice thick texture. I left the other one as is.

If I strain it should I whisk it together first or just strain out the curds and then whisk once it's strained to the right consistency?

Not sure I'll even bother since I mostly use yogurt for smoothies and would rather include the whey than add back water anyway.

[picote]

I usually just strain as is if I want something thicker, though it’s really easy to overdo it! Most of the time I just skim the whey off with a large spoon and that ends up being thick enough after a night in the fridge. 

[radial]

I like using the ultra-filtered milk.  The nutritional profile is better.  But more importantly for lazy me, you can skip the sterilization step.  Waiting for heated milk to cool down gets on my last nerve.

My yogurt needs to be super thick, so I strain off as much whey as possible.  Blending is the final step in the process in case I need to add some whey back into the mix. 

[Run Amok]

2nd batch of yogurt using the other quart of ultra filtered milk. This time I just heated the milk to 115 degrees and put it in the container i wanted to store it in inside the thermous. Perfectly thick results. Maybe next time I will be super brave and just stick it in the oven with the light on. The thermos easily kept it warm overnight.

I havent really felt the need to strain this yogurt. It's already pretty thick.

[Ice Cream]

2nd batch of yogurt using the other quart of ultra filtered milk. This time I just heated the milk to 115 degrees and put it in the container i wanted to store it in inside the thermous. Perfectly thick results. Maybe next time I will be super brave and just stick it in the oven with the light on. The thermos easily kept it warm overnight.

I havent really felt the need to strain this yogurt. It's already pretty thick.

are you using whole milk?

[Run Amok]

are you using whole milk?

2%. But the ultra filtered milk is higher protein and lower sugar so makes thicker yogurt. The one I bought this time has 14g protein per cup vs the 8 grams in regular 2%.

[oblio]

I got around to making some yogurt too! 2% of the fairlife ultrafiltered, so I used the cold start method from the twosleeve blog. It did not seem to have much of any whey on top at all after the chilling, like maybe a tablespoon at most, so it didn't seem... strainable? It is regular yogurt consistency and I wouldn't have minded it a little firmer so maybe I should have tried to strain it anyway or I will probably do the hot start next time to see if that firms it up some. I do like the taste. Her recipe said a half gallon so I did a half gallon and I have waaaaay more yogurt than I would ever eat in a week. It sounds like I can use this as my next starter? I hope so because the options I had for whole milk greek yogurt were nonexistent at the stores easily accessible to me. I ended up using a non-greek yogurt that had probiotics in it but had to buy it in an amount that was already too much yogurt for me to eat normally. It seems to have worked ok, I don't know how important this part is.

[Ice Cream]

You can use your own yogurt as starter 3-4 times.
You do not need Greek yogurt as a starter, any yogurt will do. I have used some of DH's vanilla flavored when I had nothing else.  Works fine.

[picote]

You can use your own yogurt as starter 3-4 times.
You do not need Greek yogurt as a starter, any yogurt will do. I have used some of DH's vanilla flavored when I had nothing else.  Works fine.

Why only 3-4 times? I’ve been using our yogurt for months and all seems fine. We also make a huge batch and it will last a while in the fridge. Hmm, I suppose I can see the combination of these two things being problematic if you get a weird strain taking over in your yogurt!

[caribougrrl]

Why only 3-4 times? I’ve been using our yogurt for months and all seems fine. We also make a huge batch and it will last a while in the fridge. Hmm, I suppose I can see the combination of these two things being problematic if you get a weird strain taking over in your yogurt!

yep, from every batch of yogurt, I pour out starter for the next batch (I make a batch every week, more or less)... I do find it sometimes becomes unpleasantly sour after a few months, which can be fixed starting fresh with a commercial yogurt... however, my last start was a mix of two commercial yogurts and I think I am now 6 months without it getting sour

I have a dedicated yogurt maker. The instructions are to heat milk to 185F and let it cool to 110F, then add starter, incubate for 8 hours. I have found my best consistency results come if I let it cool completely after heating (overnight in fridge) before mixing starter in, then incubating for 12 hours. Using only one of the complete cool or the 12 hour incubation isn't as successful.

[Run Amok]

After many successful tries I have a fail. I tried incubating in a small cooler instead of a thermous. This would have been batch #4 or 5 so maybe I need new starter? It got thick but not as thick as normal. Also not super sour. I let it go 12 hours and then worried about safety. Trying to decide whether to strain it. I often eat it in a smoothie or with chia seeds so thin is ok.  Ultra filtered milk so still pretty high protein (14g per cup).

[Ice Cream]

Why only 3-4 times? I’ve been using our yogurt for months and all seems fine. We also make a huge batch and it will last a while in the fridge. Hmm, I suppose I can see the combination of these two things being problematic if you get a weird strain taking over in your yogurt!

I read that and never questioned it, since we always have commercial yogurt in the fridge, too.

[Natasha]

After many successful tries I have a fail. I tried incubating in a small cooler instead of a thermous. This would have been batch #4 or 5 so maybe I need new starter? It got thick but not as thick as normal. Also not super sour. I let it go 12 hours and then worried about safety. Trying to decide whether to strain it. I often eat it in a smoothie or with chia seeds so thin is ok.  Ultra filtered milk so still pretty high protein (14g per cup).

You don’t think it was because it was in the cooler, and didn’t maintain a hot enough temp ?

[Run Amok]

You don’t think it was because it was in the cooler, and didn’t maintain a hot enough temp ?

I was fermenting my sourdough starter at the same time. My working theory is that it was infiltrated by the yeast.

[Ice Cream]

After many successful tries I have a fail. I tried incubating in a small cooler instead of a thermous. This would have been batch #4 or 5 so maybe I need new starter? It got thick but not as thick as normal. Also not super sour. I let it go 12 hours and then worried about safety. Trying to decide whether to strain it. I often eat it in a smoothie or with chia seeds so thin is ok.  Ultra filtered milk so still pretty high protein (14g per cup).

BTW: https://www.today.com/food/fairlife-dairy-still-under-fire-over-alleged-animal-abuse-t156127

[radial]

BTW: https://www.today.com/food/fairlife-dairy-still-under-fire-over-alleged-animal-abuse-t156127

Do you think that article from June 2019 represents the current state of affairs at Fairlife? 

[Ice Cream]

Do you think that article from June 2019 represents the current state of affairs at Fairlife? 

No, I think they addressed this, but I am not likely to support a company that thought this was acceptable in the past. It says something about their ethics.
Many people would not trust Volkswagen after the Diesel scandal.

[Run Amok]

I don't buy fairlife ultra filtered milk. There are several options available and we are fortunate enough to have a local option.