For high quality, cheap yogurt you cannot beat making your own. A quart of yogurt can cost as much as four dollars, you can spend that much on a gallon of organic milk and make FOUR quarts of organic yogurt for the same price as one quart store-bought.
It’s really easy and you do not need a “yogurt maker.” In fact, my yogurt got better once I quit using the stupid thing.
Do not try this with goat’s milk. For whatever reason, goat’s milk makes a very runny yogurt, you need a different recipe for that.
Here is what you need:
1. Pot (to boil milk)
2. Pot (to boil water to sanitize jars, utensils)
3. Mason Jars (glass with metal lids so they can be sanitized in boiling water)
4. Thermometer
5. Metal mesh colander
6. Metal stirring utensil (I use a table knife)
7. Tablespoon (preferably metal, since plastic does not like to be boiled…)
8. Yogurt starter (I use my favorite type of PLAIN yogurt as the starter. I prefer Stoneyfield or Brown Cow, but it is totally up to your taste preference. You can buy official yogurt starter pills, but I have never done it that way. If you are using raw milk, you may want to use the pills.)
9. Optional: One of those mason jar grabbers, it makes it a lot easier to sanitize.
10. A cooler, like the kind you would use to bring on a picnic.
11. A lot of dish towels.
Utensils
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I make 6-8 quarts of yogurt at a time (one quart = 4 cups, one gallon = 4 quarts). So my instructions will be set to make 6 quarts. They keep for at least 45 days unopened.
Step One:
Heat 1.5 gallons of milk to the boiling point. Careful, it will boil over and make a big mess if you don’t catch it right as it reaches the boiling point.
1. Heat milk to 212F
Step Two:
(Optional, do this for better results) Sanitize mason jars and other equipment. I boil the jars in my large canning pot, but if you have a dishwasher with a sanitize cycle, this should work as well. I also boil the thermometer, stirring utensil, mesh colander, and tablespoon by dipping them briefly in boiling water.
2. Sanitize
Step Three:
Let hot milk cool down to about 120F.
Step Four:
Put two tablespoons of yogurt in each quart sized mason jar.
Jars ready for warm milk.
Step Five:
Pour warm milk into jars, through the colander. I place the colander on top of each jar and pour. This removes any “skin” formed on the milk from boiling it.
Step Six:
Put on lids. Wrap each jar in a dish towel.
Step Seven:
Place all mason jars in a cooler. Add two mason jars filled with very hot water. These jars keep the milk warm. I cover all the jars with an additional towel to help insulate. The goal is to keep the milk at about 120F for the whole time it cultures.
Cooler ready for the milk. It has two jars of very hot water.
Step Eight:
Leave milk to culture for four hours. If you prefer your yogurt to have a more sour taste, you can leave it in for a couple more hours.
All ready to culture for four hours.
Step Nine:
Remove from cooler, immediately place in fridge. Eat and enjoy! I like to add fruit or fruit syrups for sweet treats and to make flavored yogurt.
Fireweed Farm 