Some homemade yogurt questions

[Arianwen1174]

I got a yogurt maker thru FreeCycle and made my first batch on Sunday. It's fantastic! I ate it plain this morning--tastes so fresh and not that tart at all. Of course, I've been eating Nancy's yogurt from Springfield, OR, so I'm used to less-sweet yogurt. Anyway, it turned out great. I'm really glad I have the yogurt maker to keep the temp right the whole time--plus it came with glass jars, which I love.

Some questions:
1. The directions that came with the maker said to only use the yogurt I make as a starter once before using fresh store-bought yogurt or using starter. I can't imagine this is really necessary, especially if it's store-bought yogurt. My yogurt is pretty much the same thing! How often do I really need fresh starter of any sort?

2. What's the best starter? It's pretty darn easy to just use my yogurt as a starter and I don't mind buying store bought every once in awhile if needed. Is special starter necessary or better?

3. Can I add honey and/or fruit before putting the yogurt into the warmer? When I added some blackberries to one of my fresh yogurts, it pretty much turned into a yogurt smoothie. Amazingly, that very night on TV I saw Alton Brown talking about this very thing--that stirring homemade yogurt much at all will do that. I'd rather avoid that. For me, it's not a big deal to just spoon some fruit, granola, whatever, over the top and eat it that way, but DH will never do that and I really want him to eat homemade.

4. Any other yogurt tips?

(BTW, why do they call it a yogurt maker when it's really just a yogurt keep-it-warm-er? )

[Delicateflower]

Store-bought yoghurt and store-bought cultures are monitored to make sure nothing inimical grows in them. You can't do that, so one bug that gets into the milk or the jars at any point can multiply and reach harmful levels in an eternal culture, and you would have no idea until you got sick.

[Arianwen1174]

Originally Posted by Delicateflower

Store-bought yoghurt and store-bought cultures are monitored to make sure nothing inimical grows in them. You can't do that, so one bug that gets into the milk or the jars at any point can multiply and reach harmful levels in an eternal culture, and you would have no idea until you got sick.

Ah, that makes total sense. Thanks so much! Now I just have to decide whether to buy a starter or fresh yogurt. If I buy starter, I don't have the plastic container to throw out (limited plastic recycling here)...

[Llyra]

Originally Posted by Arianwen1174

Ah, that makes total sense. Thanks so much! Now I just have to decide whether to buy a starter or fresh yogurt. If I buy starter, I don't have the plastic container to throw out (limited plastic recycling here)...

Yeah, the cultures in commercial yogurt are made under laboratory conditions. If you're culturing back your own yogurt, the purity of the culture can deteriorate, and you wind up with harmful bacteria in there, which our modern guts don't tolerate very well at all. I would imagine traditional yogurt-eating cultures either had a greater tolerance for the bacteria in their environments, or customs in place for yogurt-making that controlled this. Dunno too much about it. The few times I've cultured back my own yogurt more than once or twice, I wound up with very runny, smelly, spoiled milk, instead of yogurt.

In any case, I use commercial yogurt as a starter. It's cheaper that way, and you get results that are just fine. We eat like a quart of the stuff a day, so I make it really often, so I buy the commercial stuff in quarts, and then use the containers to store the finished yogurt in my fridge once it's done, or to store other foods in. I use about one half-cup of commercial yogurt per quart of homemade yogurt.

And yeah, stirring the yogurt thins it a lot, because you're not adding back milk solids to firm it up, like they do with commercial yogurts. You can control that by 1. using a really long incubation time and 2. draining your finished yogurt through cheesecloth. I incubate mine 24 hours, and drain, and that does help a lot to keep it more solid.

I haven't had good luck adding fruit etc. to the yogurt before incubation. We tried that twice, and both times the yogurt got all nasty. I'm not exactly sure why.

I think the real actual right name would be "yogurt incubator," since that's what it does, but that's too complicated to put on the package, I would imagine.

[Arianwen1174]

LOL, I can just see people staring at a box in a store that says "Yogurt Incubator" on it, and wondering if it's the same thing as incubating eggs.

Thanks for all the advice, Llyra. That helps a lot. I'm definitely going to incubate longer, for starters. Still have to work on getting it to something DH would eat. I'm sure I'll figure it out over time.

[BedHead]

If you're using raw milk, you need to use commercial starter because the natural bacteria in the milk will overcome the yogurt bacteria if you don't. When I use pasteurized milk I use my own yogurt as a starter for about 5 batches, then I use store bought yogurt and start again from that.

I also like to strain the yogurt to make 'yogurt cheese' - it's quite tart but nice and thick and smooth. I use the whey for ferments or to make rice, quinoa etc.

[Arianwen1174]

Thanks, BedHead. I made a small batch of yogurt cheese the other day and it's great!