I mean, who needs probiotics if you actually know what they are? If you eat yogurt at all, or naturally fermented pickles or sauerkraut or any cultured foods, you are getting probiotics in a totally natural way. And yes, that includes yogurt!
I love making homemade yogurt and as you may have guessed from some of my previous posts, I am especially fond of gadgets and cooking tools.
I've used several yogurt making tools in the past but when I moved to Florida, the bottom heating element of my favorite yogurt maker got lost somehow in the move.
No big deal, I thought. As I have my YoLife non electric thermos yogurt maker, I knew I wouldn't really have to do without. My Euro Cuisine yogurt maker was great, but still... just couldn't quite find it justifiable to buy another uni-purpose kitchen tool. Getting more practical in my culinary old age and even more particular when it comes to storing bulky tools in my limited kitchen space. Let's face it, no matter how big your kitchen is, if you love to cook, your space is always limited.
When choosing yogurt as a starter, I'm a purist in this regard. Not to mention, I'm not a fan of artificial anything... not a fan of preservatives, additives to alter coloring or artificial flavorings of any kind. But that is a personal preference to be sure. I suppose it bears mentioning though, that if you want the benefits of probiotics you need to dispense with the artificial sugars, additives and preservatives, etc. Defeats the purposes of probiotics in the diet, which is to course correct the over indulgence all of us have for processed foods containing sugars and all the bad juju associated with today's modern illnesses, including obesity. Do your gut a favor and go as natural as you can, from time to time.
For the sake of this blog post, I am referring to dairy yogurts made from milk. I have made other types of non-dairy yogurt for the paleos out there, but really, my heart always comes back to whole milk yogurts.
In order to replicate yogurt indefinitely, you need to think of it the same way as you think of other cultured and fermented products. Cultured products need to be fed. Like sourdough... If you've ever worked with sourdough starters, the concept is exactly the same. The culture or starter needs to be fed regularly in order to multiply and culture the newly added fresh ingredients. You add more flour and water to a sourdough starter and the starter feeds on the fresh ingredients, culturing the new ingredients to make more sourdough. If done well, the cultures can live almost indefinitely.
The way this works in yogurt is much the same way. You take a starter yogurt, such as Dannon whole fat plain yogurt, add fresh whole milk to this and leave it for 12-24 hours to culture the new milk. That's it.
Well, almost. The reason there is no finite time is that everyone's environment and kitchen temperature is different. In days of old, yogurt was made by heating yogurt in a thick vessel designed to retain the heat and then left overnight or up to a day to culture.
The reason for this, and I won't go into extraordinary detail (or I guess I already have :) is because yogurt is a mesophilic culture. What does that mean??? Well, it means it cultures at a medium temperature range, which means a yogurt culture must be kept at 110 degrees during the culturing process.
That is what these high priced and lower end yogurt makers do... they maintain a constant temperature for the culturing yogurt. Nothing more or less. If you want to make a lot of yogurt, you need a big vessel or large yogurt making appliance. If you do just a pint at a time, a smaller tool will do the trick or you can do it the old fashioned way as well.
BUT... if you have a sous vide device, you can do so much more than just make yogurt!! Not only can you make incredible steaks, soups, eggs, sauces, fish, etc... but you can make as little or as much yogurt as you want!
Here's what you need:
Fresh cultured whole fat plain yogurt
Fresh whole fat milk
Sous vide device (110 degrees F, 12 hours)
Jar or glass container with a fitted lid
There is no special ratio of yogurt to milk, or maybe there is, but in my experience it is very forgiving. What is important is to have active live cultures in your yogurt and fresh whole milk. You can absolutely use percent or low fat or skim milk, but to make your new starter, I recommend whole milk. It makes a thicker, luscious product that sets up so nicely. But do what you must.... I'm never one to stick with the rules either. :)
As a guide:
1-2 tbsp yogurt to 1 cup of milk
Or for someone that doesn't mess around:
1-2 cups yogurt to 1 half gallon (64 oz) of milk
Now if those ratios don't quite equal each other, I send love and apologies as the Pioneer woman likes to say. I send love and apologies to her for stealing that line because I love it so much.
I use whatever vessel I'm going to use to store it in to finish the process. To me, that is absolutely a large 1/2 gallon mason jar from Amazon. (These work beautifully for the broccoli and cauliflower soups as well as the Oyster stew my Florida boy loves to make.) I also have a vacuum sealer with the jar attachment that I use to seal the jars prior to putting in the sous vide water bath. But hey, if you know you will be eating it right away, why bother vacuum sealing it, right? Me, I will make a couple of these at a time.
Method:
Add your yogurt culture to the jar, followed by the milk and shake with the lid on or stir very well to incorporate the yogurt with the milk. If you see yogurt settling on the bottom of the jar, keep going. You want it well distributed.
Sous-viding (yep just made that up!):
Start your large sous vide bath and set the timer for 12 hours with a temp of 110 degrees F. At a constant, precision controlled temperature, you can almost certainly reproduce consistent results in a consistent time frame if you ensure that you started with enough cultured yogurt for the amount of milk you use. In this case, overachieving is better than underachieving and by that I mean, when in doubt, use more yogurt in your ratio than using less. You won't hurt it by using too much but it may take longer to culture if you use too little. How do you know? Well, it will set up and look fairly solid, not liquid-y. And you will see it jiggle in the jar. So scientific, huh? Haha.
Yogurt styles:
Do it a few times and you will get the hang of it. And guess what? If you like Greek yogurt, start with Greek yogurt. Just follow the guideline I provided: whole fat plain Greek yogurt, no additives or preservatives of any kind, including sugars or sweeteners. Greek yogurts are a different culture than say, American style yogurts. If you like Lebanese yogurt, use that. Indian yogurt? Use that. Use what you love as long as it fits the bill.
Yogurt Flavoring:
And if you want a Greek honey yogurt or flavoring of any kind, just wait until you make the yogurt and it is refrigerated. This is the finished product. You can flavor the finished product with whatever in the world floats your boat. Fruit or berries, sweeteners like honey or agave or organic sugars or you can even do savory flavorings.... Can you say Tzatziki? Neither can I but I sure do love Tzatziki.
**And just in case you weren't sure, yes, you do need to refrigerate your yogurt once you are done.
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