Yogurt

I have been experimenting with yogurt making. I got a machine (from my mom, for my birthday). There are so many recipies out there. My goal is to make the best tasting, cheapest, less time consuming yogurt. I am still working on it.

For plain yogurt, you need milk, and a "starter". These are the most basic ingredients. It seems that the more your milk has fat content, the thicker the yogurt will be and the less time it takes to ferment.

Most American people I consulted (through blogs) use skim milk and add up to 1/2 cup powdered milk. It seems that in the States, powdered milk is very cheap. Here in my part of the world, powdered milk is very expensive. So, I use skim milk, period. Here, milk is priced according to the amount of fat content and of course, according to brand. We buy the cheapest brand, and skim milk (4 Litres cost $5.05) That is the rock bottom price for milk here.

For the "culture", it needs to be something with live bacterial cultures. There is ONE brand of culture available here. The demand must not be that great since we are so limited. It is called Yogourmet. A box comes with either 6 packets or 12 packets. One packet is good for one batch of yogurt (and apparently you can't make subsequent batches from the original batch). One packet (5g) cost me .83$. This is more than I want to pay but for now, this is it!

Here is an alternative (which I have yet to try) for the "starter". Buy a yogurt (big one) which costs a bit less than the box of commercial starter (and that is when it is regular price). Look for the "specials" and pay even less!! The yogurt has to say that it has live cultures in it and not have ingredients like sugar, glycerin, gelatin, and other stuff. I found a brand that has almost nothing in it and it is the best! I will come back with the brand name soon. You freeze the yogurt into ice cube trays. One cube is the right amount of "starter". If my memory is correct, I got 36 cubes which makes the price about .09$ each. That is so much better than .83$ each!! Melt one cube and then add to the recipy... Apparently, you can make up to 4 batches of yougurt (using a bit of the previous batch as starter) with one cube of this yogurt. I am really liking this alternative. I have yet to try it though.

So, I have made yogurt 4 times now. Each time, I used the Yogourmet culture. Here is a resumé of my experiements.

- August - 4 c. skim milk, 1/2 c. powdered milk, 1 pk Yogourmet, 12 hours incubate. It made an extremely thick yogurt, grainy on bottom.
- September - same as August, 8 hours incubate. A little less thick, grainy on bottom.
- October - (I went wild) - 4 3/4 skim milk, 2 T. corn syrup, 2 T. vanilla, 1 pk Yogourmet, incubate 9 hours. Not great, not sweet (I hoped it would be) and not thick (but it was the perfect texture) and not grainy.
- November - 4 1/2 c. skim milk, 1 pk Yogourmet, 8 hours incubate. BEST!!! (cheapest and less time consuming yet).

More experiements to follow.