Specifically, this little number. I have been looking at yogurt machines for a while and flirting with the notion of just doing it myself with a hot water bottle and a cooler. That seems stupidly complex, though, compared with getting one of these babies.
I’m assuming that the maker comes with a little recipe guide, but I don’t mind my fellow Dopers recommending recipes. I was thinking about adding crushed frozen strawberries after the five hours the yogurt is supposed to sit in the incubator. I was also thinking about adding syrups, like pina colada and mocha, that people usually put in their coffee.
I was also wondering what kind of starter I should use. Is it okay to use a starter that is already flavored? Can I just add Dannon White Chocolate Strawberry to it and have it turn out fine? Or should I go to the health food store and get plain yogurt with no additives?
I just love making stuff like this for myself. I haven’t bought a loaf of bread in a couple of months because I enjoy making it so much. Plus, yogurt can get really expensive when you eat it every day like I do!
I think any kind of starter should be fine as long as the package says that it contains live culture, and it doesn’t have to be from a health food store. Myself, I’d buy a cup of plain yogurt with live culture for 75 cents and it would certainly be suffienct for one or two batches of homemade yogurt. I don’t know how the flavored yogurts would be affected by the incubation process, though.
As for flavors, I generally liked honey or fruit preserves. I’m not sure how well frozen strawberries would work, since they would add some water to the mixture, but I think the syrup idea sounds great. My dad would probably use pure maple syrup (organic, of course ).
I picked up a yogurt maker a couple of years ago, and we use it fairly often (for a single-purpose appliance!) You’ll find that the yogurt you make is much fresher and tastier than the store-bought stuff.
Here’s a couple of tips:
[ul]
[li]You can use off-the-shelf yogurt as a culture, just make sure that the yogurt you use has live cultures in it. The yogurt can be made from pasteurized milk, but the yogurt itself shouldn’t be pasteurized.[/li][li]Use plain yogurt, not the flavored stuff. Make plain yogurt and add your own flavors. And sample a couple different ones until you get a starter yogurt you really like. Your culture will be a little different, of course, but you’ll be starting with something you already find pleasant.[/li][li]Don’t use your own yogurt to make more after two or three generations. We found the culture gets weaker after a couple of “generations”.[/li][/ul]
Thanks guys! It should be here in a couple of days. I didn’t know you shouldn’t use the yogurt you make more than two generations on. I wonder why it gets weaker? Strange.
Do you advocate putting in dehydrated non-fat milk? I’ve been to a couple sites that suggest it, for thicker yogurt.
After reading about ‘how to make your own yogurt’ in an alternative living magazine ( just in time for the Y2k hype) and found that making it yourself took forever, I decided to just keep buying the stuff.
My kids go through it like water.
I am very interested in finding out how this machine works. The small cost is worth about two weeks in yogurt.
Shirley, it is the coolest little device. The one I have is a 1-quart capacity container built onto a low-temperature warming unit.
[ol]
[li]Pour in the milk[/li][li]Stir in the starter culture (active yogurt)[/li][li]Put on the lid[/li][li]Plug it it[/li][li]Take out yogurt later[/li][/ol]
I think it costs me about $1.50 to make a full quart of plain yogurt.
Elysian, I’ve never bothered adding non-fat dry milk, but that’s because I don’t use skim or non-fat milk for my yogurt (whole or 2% milk makes yogurt that’s plenty thick enough for my minions) so I can’t comment on that.
Oh, yeah, one other thing - check the Salvation Army for the yogurt maker before you go shopping for one. It seems to be one of those things that some people use once or twice and then donate off. The Sallie’s around here have 'em all the time.
I just keep going until 1) I accidentally ate all the yogurt and thus didn’t have any to use for the next batch or 2) The culture got contaminated (i.e. the yogurt started tasting funny). I never got sick from it or anything. I’d just say to myself, “Self, this batch tastes a little on the zour side. Get some new culture for next time!” Once or twice it came out tasting moldy, which was not cool; I threw it out and started fresh. Never had any problems with weakness, though.
I’ve read that you should not mix any flavoring other than plain sugar and maybe some vanilla extract into the yogurt before incubating it–and this would include using a flavored starter. Having fruit in the yogurt during incubation can cause yeasts to grow in your yogurt. Icky, and possibly bad for you.
The blended yogurts that you get in the store have the fruit or flavoring mixed in after the yogurt is already yogurtified. Fruit-on-the-bottom is added before incubation, and apparently that’s okay for reasons that are not clear to me. My incubator holds five individual serving containers, so I’ve made jam-on-the-bottom before, without disasterous results–but I had to be sure to make one plain to use as culture for the next batch.
Here’s my recipe:
1 quart skim milk
1 cup nonfat dry milk
1 cup plain yogurt with Live & Active cultures.
Heat the skim milk & NFDM in a saucepan to boiling. Cool to 110 degrees Fahrenheit and add plain yogurt. Stir until there are no lumps. (This works a little better if you mix a few tablespoons of the warm milk into the yogurt to thin it down, first.) Incubate overnight.
Without NDFM the yogurt just doesn’t firm up much, at least using skim milk. Also, you must do the boiling step or the yogurt won’t set. Try different brands of NDFM. IMHO, in some brands the dry-milk taste is very strong and unpleasant, and with some my yogurt came out all viscous and stringy, which wasn’t not terribly appealing. FWIW, I’ve had bad experiences with store brands and I don’t like the taste of Carnation.
I have one of the yogurt-makers that makes 5 individual cups. I really like using pie fillings to flavor my yogurt. Comstock is the most common brand - you’ll find them in the baking aisle of the grocery store. A tablespoon or two of the blueberry filling mixed into a cup is reallly good. It adds the proper amount of sweetness and is also fairly thick, so your yogurt stays the correct consistency.
That’s a great suggestion, romansperson. I know a fancy-schmancy grocery store around here that sells jars and cans of pie filling. They have gooseberry and blueberry and mixed berry. Sounds like a delicious thing to add to yogurt!
Shirley, I, too go through about a gallon of yogurt every two weeks, more if I use it on my granola in the mornings. I’m hoping this is a super-saver method. Check out the reviews in the page I linked – they say this is the best yogurt maker on the market. The reviews for other yogurt makers weren’t nearly as enthusiastic. Fifteen dollars is not a lot of money to pay for something that can save me about ten dollars a week – and it’s better for the environment to use something reusable instead of those plastic cups.
Thanks, Podkayne, for clearing up a few things. I’m certainly going to use lowfat milk with it. I think I have Kroger brand dry milk though. Maybe the natural food store will have some as well as plain active yogurt.
I can’t wait to experiment with all sorts of different flavors I’m such a food geek.
This is such a timely thread for me, much thanks to Elysian and all who contributed. I go through tons of plain lowfat yogurt every week. I would like to get a yogurt maker.
Years and years ago we made yogurt by just putting it on top of the refrigerator!
Crazy I know, we were young–but it tasted good and we never got sick.
).
I’m such a food geek.