Almond Milk Yogurt - Recipe Not Working, Help!

Sadly, I cannot have regular cow's milk or soy, and I find rice milk to be pretty dissatisfying (to put it nicely). So, I am left with a choice of using almond or coconut milk in my diet.

I've tried three times to make yogurt out of almond milk. All three of which, I am fairly certain have failed.

The problem: After about an hour, the almond milk separates, leaving me with about 2/3 clear liquid, and 1/3 of what I'm assuming is the yogurt? I can't imagine that people put so much effort into making almond milk yogurt, only to get 1/3 the batch size they started with. I must be doing something wrong....here's what I've gotten thus far:

First attempt: Heat milk to 180F, add pectin for a thicker yogurt, when the yogurt reached 105F I added some commercial cow's milk yogurt as a starter. A tiny bit of milk is OK, and I was hoping to dilute the cow's milk proteins with each batch.

First Fix: I read that heating the almond milk above 105F would make it separate during fermentation

Second Attempt: Heat to 100F, add pectin and starter commercial yogurt, place in yogurt machine

Second Fix: The pectin was fruit based, so I thought perhaps there was citrus in the pectin, which made the cow's milk based starter yogurt curdle.

Third Attempt: Heat to 100F, NO pectin added, starter commercial yogurt added, place in yogurt machine.

I first used Stony Field yogurt, then the second two batches were made with Chobani Greek yogurt. Also, I am using Almond Breeze.

Any suggestions? Has anyone successfully made almond milk yogurt? I miss it so much, I'd really love to make a yogurt that I can eat!

Chris, I have seen a recipe using agar-agar. I'm mostly interested in the healthy bacteria's in fermented yogurt, though, and not just the taste and texture. This is why I was really trying to make it work in the yogurt machine with at least an 8 hour fermentation period.

Gunnar, I have heard that goat's milk can be easier to handle for some. I just haven't gotten around to experimenting with it to see if it's OK for me. This may be worth looking into at this point, though, as it would make my yogurt expedition that much simpler...But I do think you are right about the commercial almond milk already being over processed. Now that I think about it, all the recipes I came across online were people starting out with a fresh batch of home-made milk. I've got some raw almonds on hand, too, so I'll give this a shot.

As for a recipe - I was using 1 liter of milk, about 2 heaping tablespoons of starter yogurt, about 2.5 - 3 tablespoons of pectin (first two batched only), and was aiming for a minimum of 8 hours of fermentation. My yogurt maker is 8 smaller jars as opposed to one quart-sized container.

Success! The answer truly was as simple as making my own, fresh almond milk from scratch. Thanks for the suggestions!