[Mezzaluna]

I could post the recipe but I think every one here is pretty much knowlegable in that department.

Please do! I'm a home cook with no experience but I love yogurt, especially Greek style. I've been buying Fage (pronounced "fay-yeh") but at about $2 per 5 ounce container, it's pricy. I buy the zero fat version, 80 calories for the container.

Tzadziki, if I remember correctly, is actually a sauce made with thick yogurt. It includes cucumber and lots of garlic, with variations that include herbs, onions, etc.

When I was in Greece many years ago I enjoyed the "yaorti mi meli"- yogurt with honey. I got a case of food poisoning and after my guts settled down a bit, that's all I wanted to eat for a couple of days. Poor me....

[OregonYeti]

Where did that littlemama go? I miss her already

[shel]

Originally Posted by Mezzaluna

Please do! I'm a home cook with no experience but I love yogurt, especially Greek style. I've been buying Fage (pronounced "fay-yeh") but at about $2 per 5 ounce container, it's pricy. I buy the zero fat version, 80 calories for the container.

Tzadziki, if I remember correctly, is actually a sauce made with thick yogurt. It includes cucumber and lots of garlic, with variations that include herbs, onions, etc.

Hi Mezz,

A couple of weeks ago the tasting booth at the local TJ's was offering TJ's greek style yougurt. It compared favorably to Fage at a substantially lower price. You might want to give it a try if there's a TJ's near you.

Tzadziki is good stuff - cool and refreshing, nice for a summer spread - and I don't even like cucumbers that much.

Shel

[bluezebra]

Now that I have a very nice sourdough starter robust and happy, I'm really wanting to try my hand at fermented foods. Yogurt and brined pickles and veggies top the list.

So if I understand correctly, I can just go to WF and get their greek yogurt with active culture or their White Mountain Yogurt with active culture and just use that over and over again to start my yogurt, correct?

[Littlemama]

1 qt of milk, any type
1/4 cup of dry powdered milk for thickening agent if prefered
2 tblspoon of yogurt with live cultures

combine the milk, milk powder if you are using it and heat the mixture to 180 degrees F.

let milk cool to 116 degrees F and add the starter (yogurt with live cultures) and mix well.

keep covered, at 116 degrees F, for at least 6hours or until the consistency is of thick cream.....you can go for as long as 10hours and use a heating pad set on low to maintain temp.

Refrigerate and serve cold. this will keep refrigerated for up to 2 weeks.

save 2-3 tablespoons for your next batch......when your culture stops working, get fresh yogurt from the store with live cultrues and start again.

[KYHeirloomer]

Not quite, Blue.

What you want to do is save about a half cup from each batch you make to be used as the starter for a new batch.

[Luc_H]

My fellow forum colleagues please be cautious if you want to start making yogurt.

Make sure your equipment is always clean and sanitized while handling milk because the temperature used to ferment the yogurt is also the perfect temperature for nasty bacteria to grow as well.

Pasteurized milk, in particular, is susceptible of being contaminated with a pathogenic bacteria because it has little or no natural live bacterial flora of its own as a defense.

I have explained in my original post how to stay safe with a sanitizing solution.

Be safe,
Luc H

[Mezzaluna]

Lots of good advice on this thread.

Has anyone used a home yogurt maker? It heats to a set temperature and comes with little cups to put the mixture in. This one is available at Williams Sonoma for $39.95 US:

They also sell freeze-dried yogurt starter, 10 packets for $19.50 US. Each packet has 1.75 ounces.

[bluezebra]

Thanks to all of you! I do think I'm going to try it soon. I may do a test with my heating pad and my tiny crock pot I use to keep queso cheese hot to see how hot it heats some water or milk.

Mezza I like the looks of that and may see if I can save my pennies for it! I love the idea of a thermostat!

Another idea I'm wondering about it using an electric frying pan with a thermostat control and a hand or dish towel place between the bottom and the yogurt container? Maybe will do an experiment about that too...

Luc thanks for the info about sanitation. That is exactly why I've always been afraid to do it before. It took a huge walk of faith to get past the Leukonostoc phase of Sir Stinky (my sourdough starter as I call him) and into the pleasant smell phase of him. I was skeered the whole time that I would be poisoning us all! I would love to make fresh fermented kraut and kimchee and pickled veggies but have been askeered of that too! Will start slow with the next step of yogurt. It's so dam expensive to buy in the store!!! :-/

[Luc_H]

Mezzaluna,

almost $20 for yogurt starter cultures Wow that sounds expensive?!

I purchased cultures from an industrial source for $30 that can inoculate 100 liters of milk.
Even the cultures I buy at the supermarket is $4 for 6 packets of 5grams. Each packets can make 1 liter (1 pint) of yogurt.

Luc H

[OregonYeti]

With yogurt, sanitary conditions are not as important as, say, making beer or canned stuff. If you leave milk out it gets sour and it has to smell and/or taste bad before it's a health risk. Yogurt might not taste as good if you don't make it properly, but no worries about salmonella or botulism or anything like that. Unless you make it really wrong.

I'll try yogurt starter cultures. When you make a batch of yogurt using some of your last batch as starter, it doesn't taste quite as good sometimes. Getting starter culture would avoid this.

[Luc_H]

Hi OregonYeti,

(I feel this is too important not to respond)

Pasteurized milk is a low acid and high protein containing food before becoming yogurt (high acid) so has the potential of being dangerously contaminated by manipulation. see: http://www.fcs.msue.msu.edu/ff/pdffiles/foodsafety2.pdf

(Unspoiled from healthy cows) unpasteurized raw milk will sour into harmless curds if left on the counter because it is teaming with harmless even beneficial bacteria. Pasteurized milk having lost most of its indigenous bacteria is potentially susceptible to pathogenic bacterial contamination. Although the pathogenic bacteria may die off once the milk becomes acid turning to yogurt their toxins may not be destroyed and can be harmful.

In my recipe, the initial heating to 82C (180F) is a pasteurizing step then the sanitation solution for instruments just makes any subsequent manipulation more safe.

I have made beer from grain and mash for many years. Being high in carbohydrate and in water (low protein) the worst beer can turn is being spoiled by wild yeast or mold. None of which is life threatening. High protein foods like milk, meat and the like are potentially dangerous for a host of bacteria.

Bread, high in carbs, low in water and protein are almost always safe although like homebrews, not always edible.

The main problem with cans is botulism because of the provenance of the produce (cultivated in earth) which, strive in low acidity and lack of oxygen.

Luc H.

[OregonYeti]

Right, botulism with an anaerobic environment. The safety precautions you mention are important. Don't can your yogurt and, let it breathe at least a little bit, but keep it warm as it ferments.

I bring my milk to barely a boil, (hotter than needed) before making yogurt with it. I haven't used raw milk and I probably won't try it.