Making Homemade Yogurt and Whey

A guest post from Holly on making your own homemade yogurt:

Over the winter, my husband and I began making yogurt.  We followed a general book recipe and incorporated advice from friends and wisdom we learned along the way.

You can begin heating 1 gallon of 2% milk on the stove top up to somewhere between 190 and 200 degrees F.  This is allowed to cool to about 110-115 degrees F.

Once cool add about 1-2 cups of room temperature yogurt from the prior batch.  This is set aside with each batch and can be kept in the refrigerator until you are ready to make more yogurt.  The starter yogurt has not been sweetened nor has it been strained.  For the first batch, we used yogurt starter culture that can be found online or in some grocery stores.

Add the mixture to a crock or large glass container, cover it with a slightly damp cloth, and place it in a clean, dark place.  The yogurt will be ready within 6-24 hours.  Based on our observations this time-frame is most dependent upon the temperature during the bacterial fermentation process.

If the temperature is lower (75-85 degrees) the yogurt takes longer and has a less tangy quality when ready.

If the temperature is higher (85-95 degrees) the yogurt is done sooner and has a slightly increased sharpness.

When it is ready, you can strain the yogurt through cloth (we use bandannas) over bowls to thicken it and make it creamier.  Once it has drained for a few hours just pour it into a large bowl, scraping any excess remaining on the cloths into the bowl as well.  For sweetener we add honey, but we have added fruit with sugar syrup or ginger syrup.

The yogurt usually has outstanding flavor and freshness, it is inexpensive, and it has valuable health qualities, but maybe it is the fluid that drained into the bowls that has been the biggest reward.  The remaining fluid is whey and you can do so much with it.  We typically end up with about a quart of whey from the process and include it in bread (substituted 1:1 for water) and in preserving vegetables through fermentation.  I have heard about it being used for anything from high-protein smoothies to hair treatments.

Making homemade food is just the beginning of an incredible journey for us — keep reading!

Originally posted on brewersorganics.com