So how do you make yogurt?

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Do you have to have a rennet? I remember my grandmother making it but I don't remember how. I always liked hers better than store brand. And if you can strain it down to a thicker (read less slimey) consistancy, I'm all for it. Btw, I have goats milk...not cow.

Also, where do I find rennet for mozzerella? and other cheese?

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Hey, Cricket, you don't need rennet to make yogurt, but you do need a good, live culture yogurt to use as a starter. I use Brown Cow yogurt (it's the only one I've found that will reproduce, meaning it still has live cultures).

I do mine this way:

Fill a large pan with milk (I'm fortunate to be able to get raw milk), you can use either skimmed or whole, and heat it over low heat to 180 degrees. Hold it there for 40 minutes if you're using skimmed, 30 minutes if you're using whole. I've tried doing it where I just heat it to 107 degrees and then add my starter, but it always comes out loose and slimey that way (YUK!).

After the milk has heated for 30 or 40 minutes, take off the heat and let it cool down to between 107 - 110 degrees. Remove the skin that formed on the top of the milk (my cats love this stuff) and stir in 1 cup of starter yogurt. That's figuring you used a gallon of milk. I stir with a spoon 300 strokes, quickly, like doing cake batter. A whisk will incorporate too much air. Then I place 3 sheets of black & white newspaper over the top of the pan and crunch the lid down on it. Wrap in a fluffy towel and place in a cooler with a couple more towels under and around it, then leave it overnight to incubate. In the morning, unwrap it, remove the newspaper, put the lid back on and put in the fridge to chill.

After it's chilled a bit, test the texture, and if you want to strain it then, that's the time. I usually get a good texture doing mine this way, but I do like to use yogurt cheese as a mayo substitue, so I usually put at least some of it in a towel-lined strainer overnight again, then I mix in some salt and herbs.

If you use store-bought milk, by the way, you'll probably want to heat the milk in a double-boiler, because the powdered milk they add to storebought will burn onto the bottom of the pan over direct heat. Fresh milk won't do that.

Having said all that, I've never made goatsmilk yogurt, only cow's milk, so I don't know if the properties are the same, but I would imagine it wouldn't be all that different.

Oh, and I get my rennet (for making mozzarella) from New England Cheesemaking Supply: www.cheesemaking.com/ I buy the liquid calf rennet and I like the results very much.

Does that help?

~Lannie

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Old topic but new questions.

I bought some of those 'flour sacks' at wal-mart, they aren't sacks just big towels. Are those the ones you use for straining? I've never seen cheese cloth at the store.

I also buy brown cow yougrt but it's expensive, will I be saving any money making it myself? Better Question, How many cups of finished yougrt do you get from a gallon of milk? I buy the brown cow cream top *YUMMY* will that still work? I like the thicker texture. Will it make a difference in the finished product?

Also, I drink organic milk and it's pretty expensive ($7/gallon right now) can I get away with using the regular stuff or will the chalkiness come through?

MM - Who feels like cooking something today...

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The flour sack towels you bought are the same as what I use, MM. Cheesecloth that you can get at a regular store won't work at all - the holes are WAY too big. Real cheesecloth is like fine muslin, only stretchier.

If you use a gallon of milk to make your yogurt, you'll get a gallon of yogurt. If you then portion this gallon of yogurt out into 16 one-cup servings (well I guess it would be 17 cups allowing for the cup of yogurt starter you added to your original gallon of milk), then you'll have 17 new starters. You can use a cup of your current batch of yogurt to make your next batch, up to (in my experience) between 5 and 10 batches before you start getting less than stellar results. Think of it as making a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy... it degrades slightly each time.

Can you save money doing it this way? ABSOLUTELY! For just a little over $3.00 (I think) you can get a quart of Brown Cow (I use the cream on top stuff, too), which will make 4 gallons of yogurt, which will make 68 frozen one-cup starters. If you figure you can get 5 batches of yogurt from each one using an initial starter, those 68 starters can make you 340 gallons of yogurt. (Was that just as clear as mud?) All from one quart of Brown Cow starter yogurt. That ought to last you a few years, eh? Then all you'd need to buy would be the milk for each new batch.

You can use store-bought milk, but like I said, it will burn on the bottom because of the crap they put in it, so when you scoop out the yogurt from the pan, just be careful you don't get the burned brown stuff on the bottom of the pan. Using a double boiler makes the burned stuff less, but I've still had it show up. Using raw milk, I can heat it right on the burner, and it won't burn on the bottom of the pan. I heat it slowly, though, over low heat.

Every time we get a new container of Brown Cow, Rich and I always eat the cream layer off the top before I make yogurt with it. Yes, we're BAD! But it's SO GOOD! Anyway, you can eat the cream layer off the top, or you can mix it down into the rest of the yogurt - it doesn't really matter.

And whole milk makes thicker yogurt than skim milk does. I used skim (2%) milk from the store for years, but now with the raw milk, I leave the cream in it, and you wouldn't believe the difference. Sometimes when I uncover a new batch, it's almost as solid as cream cheese, and the flavor is superior.

If your yogurt turns out too runny for you, strain it. Don't be tempted to add powdered milk to the batch to thicken it. I can't even begin to say how bad powdered milk is. That's one reason I don't like the idea of using store-bought milk anymore, because it all has powdered milk added, even the "whole milk" which is still partially skimmed before it's homogenized. If you can ever get raw milk, and use that for your yogurt, you won't need to strain it because it sets up beautifully with nothing added.

~Lannie

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Wow, that's good to know. I watched the Alton Brown special on yogurt but I didn't have a good kitchen thermometer so I didn't try it. I typically buy the Brown Cow every week and that quickly adds up. I don't go back to the store that carries it until Wednesday (I skipped this week because we still have lots in the fridge that needs to be eaten) so I'll have to wait until then. Even if I just buy the 1 cup container for $1 and a gallon of milk for $3 I'll get 2 or 3 times my money's worth. I'll post it when I finally try it and tell you the results I got, I'm planning on using whole milk.