Homemade yoghurt - help needed!

So, does anyone else make their own yogurt? I started a month or so ago, in a bid to cut down my use of single use plastics (yoghurt pots, in this instance).

Well, I’ve had a fair success - the yogurt is certainly tasty. But it’s just a bit runny, sometimes more than other times. I’ve tried full fat and fat free, plus a detour into goats milk (super runny).

Has anyone got any similar experience and tips on how to make my yogurt thicken up a bit? I’ve been following this simple recipe.

I’ve been making yogurt recently in my instant pot, and I’ve been surprised how consistently thick it is. My recipe is:

Heat a quart of milk on “steam” for one minute
Allow to cool to less than 115F
Stir in some yogurt, and put in the pot on “yogurt” for 7-8 hours.
Remove vessel and place in fridge.

The differences from your recipe are that i cook more at a time (probably not important) my milk gets hotter than yours (I think it’s cooked under pressure, so higher than 212F) and it might be incubated at a higher temperature. I believe it incubated at about 110F.

This won’t come out as thick as “Greek” yogurt, but it’s thicker than the regular yogurt I buy. Greek yogurt is strained to remove the whey, and it’s much thicker.

What’s an instant pot? Also, do you add powdered milk, as per my recipe? I’ve never too sure what that does.

I did some research on the runniness issue. One problem is not getting the milk high enough. In an Instant Pot, if you use too much milk with the yogurt setting, you can risk not getting a good enough temperature.

To thicken up your yogurt, strain it overnight in the fridge. Use a coffee filter in a strainer. I bought this from amazon to strain homemade yogurt.

That looks promising. So, stupid question, I use this after I’ve made the yogurt, right?

The texture is really dependent on how you heat the milk prior to culturing- too fast/too slow and wrong temperature will affect the texture quite a bit.

Your culture might have something to do with it, as may the actual culturing time/temp.

Straining yoghurt isn’t really making it thicker; it’s simply separating the thicker part from the runnier part. If you don’t want to consume the runny part, that’s your choice. No different that trimming a slice of bread or peeling an apple.

But it’s food with protein and likely other nutrients. If you’re trying to reduce your environmental impact, reducing food waste is important. When I’ve made yoghurt I usually stirred it back in, but sometimes I used the runoff to make pancakes or waffles.

An instant pot is an electric pressure cooker that also heats at other levels. It comes with a yogurt setting, so it works like a yogurt maker to incubate the yogurt at a set temperature.

I have not added powdered milk. I missed that your recipe included that. I have used a good quality homogenized (and pasteurized, which I doubt matters since I heat it before culturing) whole milk.

I leave the whey in, and don’t strain. I prefer the texture of regular yogurt to strained (“Greek”) yogurt, and I enjoy the “pudding” texture of yogurt that hasn’t been stirred after setting.

I’ve made it plain in a large jar, and I’ve also made individual servings with jam at the bottom. The jam interferes slightly with the setting, but not much. That is, I cook the milk in a large container, put jam in the bottom of little containers, then whisk the culture into the large container and pour it gently over the jam. There’s an interface between the two that has a slightly weird texture, but overall, I am getting a delicious fruity yogurt without too much sugar and with a jam or jelly that I really like.

We make yogurt every day at home and here is how we do it.

Warm the milk of your choice to about 115F. Let it cool to about 106 (a very hot fever). Add a couple of spoons of the starter. Stir well. Leave it in a warm place for a few hours. If you live in a cold place or if the AC is on full blast for most of the day, put in an oven with the pilot light on.

For the starter, the best thing we found is to use store bought Kefir - make sure the brand you buy says “live cultures” on the container. After the first batch, you can use a couple of spoons of the previous batch as the starter. In my experience, we need to buy a fresh bottle of Kefir every couple months to replenish the colony. If you can get your hands on a good culture to begin with, you don’t need to do that. There are several websites that sell starters.

If you need some yoghurt to make more yoghurt, how was the first yoghurt made?

Was it a happy accident? :confused:

There’s some whole chicken and egg joke going on right there

Yes. My kids have made yoghurt accidentally by leaving cups of milks in unnoticed places. Sometimes the results are icky, sometimes they look plausible. Controlled fermentation keeps the odds in your favor.

Yes, strain it afterwards. The liquid that drains from the now thick yogurt is whey.

Certainly worth a go. I’ve also spotted that a yogurt maker is relatively inexpensive - is it worth it? Or just more clutter for my kitchen work surface?

More clutter from what I’ve seen in every kitchen that had one; it doesn’t make better yoghurt than any other pot and doesn’t make other stuff the other pots can. As a general rule, anything that’s designed to be used for one thing will be less worth it than something designed for versatility. A small knife lets you cut, chop and peel a lot more things than a spiral-cutter and takes a lot less space.

Very good points.

Your recipe is similar to what I do. I don’t use milk powder (which I assume is meant to thicken it, or perhaps just to up the protein content). I get it a little hotter - 185. And if I’m feeling industrious I’ll try to hold it around that temperature (between 180 and 190) for twenty minutes, before letting it cool down to 115 and adding the culture. The additional step is supposed to yield thicker yogurt.

If you’re using store bought yogurt, as opposed to a starter culture, make sure that it’s one that is a live active culture. If you’re using part of your last batch to start the next one, be aware that (particularly when beginning with store bought) it will degrade over multiple uses. I’ve noticed that after maybe the third or fourth use, my yogurt will get significantly runnier.

If you strain and go the Greek yogurt route, you can retain the whey and use it in other cooking applications. I make my steel cut oats with half whey, half water, gives them a nice tang.

I strongly recommend the Instant Pot. We bought one last year when it was on crazy-sale, and I was skeptical–but we use it all the time. Yogurt, beans, and rice are what we use it for most. Given how much of these things we eat, it’s wonderful.

I make mine in an instant pot - with vanilla and condensed milk (Lil Poysyn likes sweeter yogurt). I use 3% milk and I strain it overnight through muslin - it ends up being VERY thick, like greek yogurt.