Mixing in powdered milk works really well to make thicker yogurt. Something about increasing the concentration of solids... I suppose that you could reduce the milk volume by heating and achieve the same thing.
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Mixing in powdered milk works really well to make thicker yogurt. Something about increasing the concentration of solids... I suppose that you could reduce the milk volume by heating and achieve the same thing.
Oooooooh yeah! It turned out thicker and creamier this time! Quite awesome, thanks for all the tips! ;):D;):D
Any suggestions for how to make bigger batches? I've been using a half-gallon of milk in my removable crockpot liner, and incubating it in a cooler with some hot water bottles. The problem is that DH and I chow down those ~8 cups of yogurt in less than a week.
I'm looking for ideas on other containers to use (several mason jars, maybe?) and more importantly, a way to incubate bigger batches so that I can make up a gallon of milk at a time. I've considered buying a bigger cooler....
What are other folks doing? Thanks for your help!
No specific ideas for you - I end up making 2 batches over the weekend (have trouble finding time during the week to have time to boil, cool and then incubate without staying up too late). 4 quart mason jars should do the trick for you (and I really prefer glass for yogurt - though I'm using plastic for now). Any way to make a 2nd batch mid-week?
CA
I do this when I'm making paneer, a soft cheese. If I have to use grocery store milk, they've stripped a lot of the milk solids out in the processing. The powdered milk helps to replace some of that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Becky
Of course, if I can get 5% fat unpasteurized unhomogenized Jersey Milk, I don't need to do that, but I can't get it here.
Oh how I miss Young's Jersey Dairy!
Sounds like you and I are in the same boat. I don't have much time to babysit yogurt temps unless I stay up too late.Quote:
Originally Posted by CA_in_NC
Maybe I'm buying a second cooler tonight. But that would mean a second thermometer too (Yeah, I'm a control freak about things like this).
:D
Mmmmmmmmm. I don't even like dairy products, but what a great place. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by ZenSojourner
Yeah, if I ever get a chance to do a bit of traveling sometime, I'm heading up there with all the coolers that will fit in my trunk.
I use a double boiler for the scald.
When the milk reaches temp, I set the top of the double boiler in an ice bath and forget about it for a little while. The next time I think about it, it is usually down to inoculation temperature.
If I do this before bed, it can culture happily overnight. In the morning, it is done, but not cool (bleh), so it needs a little fridge time before I'll eat it.
None of the steps require my complete attention.
My yogurt maker is really quick. When I'm re-culturing off a relatively fresh batch, usually 2 hours or so...
Still...I rarely have that much time in the evenings...
You can also incubate in the oven. Just leave the oven light on with the door closed (no peeking) and it should keep the yogurt warm enough overnight (unless your house is REALLY cold, like ours was this winter).
If you use larger containers, the yogurt will probably take longer unless you add more starter, too.
Ball makes a half-gallon glass jar. Get a 6-pack of those at your local ACE hardware and you can easily do a gallon at a time in glass. (We use these to store our goat's milk).
I like those ideas! I'll have to see how well my oven light works. My kitchen is the coldest part of the house, but it's getting warm enough outside that it might work :)Quote:
Originally Posted by GLC1968
Those glass jars sound perfect, and no more tying up my crock pot liner with yogurt-making!
It worked! :D I made a batch on sunday. Used my favorite local dairy's skim milk (pasteurized but not homogonized), and some good plain Greek yogurt from WF as starter. Had a bit of slop pouring the fresh yogurt into the cheesecloth lined colander (but Nala-dog cleaned it up :rolleyes:). Strained it in the frig for a couple of hours - was surprised how much whey strained out. Now all I have to do is work on my flavors....Quote:
Originally Posted by jillm
Thank you for the recipe! :D
"Strained it in the frig for a couple of hours - was surprised how much whey strained out. Now all I have to do is work on my flavors...."
I was surprised how much whey comes out of the yogurt and it's a stickier consistency than that I noticed on the bought yogurt? Anyone else notice this? I just carefully pour off the whey, I don't eat it. Is that what you are supposed to do with it?
You can use it to cook with. There's a lot of protein in whey. Vegetarians use it to make soup stock, instead of beef or chicken stock.
Using Whey instead of some or all of the water in bread:
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/359...use-it-and-why
Use it instead of milk or water in pancakes or cornbread mixes
Use it as a substitute for buttermilk or sour milk in recipes calling for those
Use it to cook rice (probably ok) or oatmeal (ummm, yuck?)
Add it to dog food - for the DOG of course
Soak beans in it instead of in water (I imagine you'd want to do this in the fridge?)
If you're using it to soak beans or cook rice, I've seen suggestions varying from adding a couple T of whey to the normal amount of water, to using 100% whey.
If you're using it in soup, one source I saw said not to add it until after any beans in the recipe are nearly cooked, claiming it will slow bean cooking down. I'm not sure why that would be, you would think the acidity of it would break beans down faster.
The following are from here:
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/353018
They make ricotta cheese from whey left over from cheese making, I don't see why that wouldn't work with whey from yoghurt, It needs to have never been boiled for this to work. I don't think I remember boiling the milk for yoghurt. Anyway here's the recipe:
The cheese cloth they re talking about there is REAL cheese cloth, not the gauzy stuff they sell in the grocery store. And if you want to try ricotta, one source I saw said to let the whey sit over night to increase acidity.Quote:
Take the whey and heat it to 200 degrees plus (F of course). If your whey is acidic enough, little specs of the albumen will start to precipitate out once it gets to around 200. If this does not happen, add a tablespoon or two of white vinegar. Once the albumen starts to separate, maintain the heat for a few minutes so it all has time to set up, then pour through a very fine cheese cloth. It usually takes several hours, if not overnight, to drain completely.
Salt if you like, then use it however you like. I usually get 1/2 - 1 cup of finished ricotta from the whey produced by a gallon of milk, after cheese making.
Here's something else to try, if you drink coffee I guess:
Here's a similar recipe from Iceland:Quote:
add a bit of sugar and sloooowly cook it down into a delicious caramel-like sweet syrup that's great in coffee or on ice cream.. Norwegian gjeyost (sp?) is this type of cheese. I would make pints and pints of this and can it. It's addictive.
http://icecook.blogspot.com/2007/08/...mysuostur.html
Hope that helps.
Acid hardens bean skins, preventing them from taking up water. If the cooking liquid is too acidic, beans won't cook at all. Same reason you don't put tomatoes in bean soups/chilis until the beans are fully cooked.Quote:
Originally Posted by ZenSojourner
By the same token, I'd be leery of soaking dried beans in whey - have you tried it? (In any event, it seems wasteful - the beans will take up very little if any of the nutrients in whey.)
Nope, I don't usually cook with whole beans. I usually use my whey making curries or dahl soups. (Dahl are split, shelled legumes such as chickpea, pigeon pea, etc). I've also used it making potato soup, for which I have a killer recipe.Quote:
Originally Posted by OakLeaf
Oh yeah, and you can freeze it to use later. In fact I used to make ice cubes of whey and then I could just add them to whatever I was cooking for a little extra tang.
Consistency was just fine. And considering I immediately started filling available plastic containers, I couldn't tell you what 1/2 gallon of yogurt condensed down to. I had a viscous glob, in fabric, that I spooned to containers. Nala was doing her best to not be directly underfoot, but let me know she was available....
I was wondering about using unflavored gelatin to thicken the yogurt - I know from reading labels that commercial yogurts do this. Any thoughts? Figured once I eat my way through this batch, and make my second batch, I'd give it a try. Maybe one envelope?
You can add some dried milk powder to thicken up yogurt, especially if it is made with skim or low-fat milk. Works great!
I tried this using 1 envelope to a half-gallon of milk. I just stirred it in right before the starter. What I ended up with was rather thin yogurt, with a gelatinous rubbery layer on the very bottom of the container. I think it would have worked if I'd more fully dissolved the gelatin in something hotter before adding it to the milk.Quote:
Originally Posted by bmccasland
I wouldn't try this. The thing that makes yoghurt yoghurt is the action of the yeastie beasties in the milk. Adding something like gelatin is liable to interfere with the natural processes that turn milk into yoghurt.Quote:
Originally Posted by bmccasland
Adding powdered milk as has been suggested a couple of times will probably work pretty well, I do this all the time when I'm making paneer. It increases the amount of milk solids available. Using whole milk (3%) to start with will also help.
Gelatin will work (you have to dissolve it in the milk when it's at 180), but I don't like the flavor/texture. I use whole milk, and my yogurt has a nice texture. I've used powdered milk, but also thought it modified the flavor (yogurt tasted like re-constituted powdered milk - ick!).
CA
I was thinking about adding the gelatin after the milk and yogurt starter got to know one another - maybe warm some plain milk to the right temp to melt the gelatin, then stir that in? But doesn't too much stiring thin out the yogurt? So maybe I'll go the extra milk powder route. I'm trying to keep the fat content down, so use skim milk - but what I buy from my local dairy doesn't taste at all watery. ;)
Last thing I want is globs of gelatin in my otherwise yummy yogurt. :eek:
How about straining the yogurt for a thicker texture? Cheesecloth or a coffee filter in a strainer? Many of the commercial natural yogurt makers do that since they don't add any thickening agents. Greek style is double, sometimes triple, strained. Yum! So think and creamy, and absolutely wonderful as a dessert with fresh seasonal fruit. I had it once with strawberries macerated in port: almost felt like a guilty pleasure while eating it.:p
I made some yogurt in the crock pot this weekend and it turned out tasty but a little runny (especially yummy with a little homemade cherry jam stirred in!). I used 1% homogenized pasteurized milk and Dannon plain yogurt.
Has anyone tried stirring in a little instant pudding at the end (after it's done and in the refrigerator) for texture and flavor?
I'm just starting on my second attempt at hemp yogurt.
The only brand of hemp milk available locally is Living Harvest. The unsweetened kind was absent from the shelves for several weeks, and now it's back in a new package. It doesn't say it's been reformulated, but it only has one gram of protein per serving (as opposed to four grams in the sweetened original in the old packaging).
I really doubt that'll be enough protein to curdle. But since I opened the package before reading it, I'm going to try it anyway. :rolleyes: Here goes nothing, well, I have to get rid of that yogurt starter before it expires anyway. ;)
Hipmama, do you know? Did they reformulate it? Do you know what the minimum amount of protein is, to curdle enough to make yogurt? You mentioned Living Harvest, have you tried any of the other brands of hemp milk? I see on the website that Hemp Bliss has 5 g protein per serving, and Hemp Dream has 4 g but isn't available unsweetened. Kind of academic at the moment since all I can get around here is Living Harvest, and no one has hemp seeds even if I had the initiative to make my own.
Well the hemp milk did curdle, but it was obviously way too diluted and low-protein. I wound up with literally half a jar of whey, and the other half very, very loose yogurt, really more liquid.
Don't think I'll try that again. Maybe I'll try again with Hemp Bliss. But really, of soy beverages, only unsweetened Edensoy (12 g protein per serving) is rich enough to make decent yogurt. So I'm not getting my hopes up for Hemp Bliss. If I can get my hands on some hemp seeds I'll definitely try making my own, though. The main reason making soy milk is such a PITA is having to grind it hot; other nut/seed beverages aren't so bad.