Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Have you noticed yogurt prices lately?

I am a huge fan of Greek yogurt, but honestly, who can afford it? I was in the store yesterday and thought, "Oh let me pick up some yogurt!" I like to give my kids and myself healthy snacks, but after looking at the prices, I just couldn't do it. It was $1.00 for ONE SERVING of yogurt. That is insanity at it's finest!

Side note: While I'm talking about yogurt, did you know that yogurt was started as a means to get milk to last longer? I thought that was an interesting tidbit of information, although I don't remember where exactly I got it from.

Anyway, I've always wanted to buy a yogurt maker, but again, I can't justify the price of one. It just seems like a lot of money to spend all at one time. I could save up for one, I suppose, but that would mean I would have no yogurt in the mean time.

So....I've decided I'm going to make crock pot yogurt. Oy vey!

I have read many recipes on making yogurt in a crock pot, on a stove, in a yogurt maker, etc. I have to admit, I am not a "recipe" kind of girl. I like to do things my way and take risks. So, I pretty much took everything I read, figured out the basics of what makes it work, and just did my own thing.

1. I took a whole gallon of 2% milk and put it in my crock pot.



2. I stuck that bad boy on high, and came back and checked it at 2 hours. It was just starting to tremor, working up to a boil.
3. I turned the crock pot off, and pulled the ceramic bowl out and set it on the table to cool. I just wanted it to be warm. Doing it this way only took a little over an hour.

4. When the outside of the crock felt warm to the touch, I washed my hands, stirred the milk, then stuck my finger in there to make sure that it was the temperature I wanted it to be. I have read it needed to be between 110 and 115 degrees for this to work. I like to challenge facts. Haha! I will say, I have NO clue what temperature my milk was, but I do know, it was warmer than 98.6 degrees. lol I was able to hold my pinkie finger in it for 10 seconds comfortably.

5. At this point I added 2 cups of plain yogurt with active cultures, wrapped my pot in a fleece blanket and stuck it in the oven with the light on for 8 hours.

After 8 hours, I took my crock out of the oven. I have to admit that I was a little nervous because as I've mention before, I'm a rule breaker. If you are a rule breaker, then you know, things can either turn out REALLY good, or REALLY bad. There really is no in between. lol

So, here comes the test, I poured my concoction into a strainer with what was supposed to be a cheese cloth, but was really a flour sack towel. (Because like I said before, I'm a rule breaker! Why just break one when you can break them all? lol)  I like thick yogurt and I read that if you  strain out the whey, they yogurt will be thicker. So, there you go, there is my yogurt, in a the strainer.



After straining the yogurt, it was thinner than store bought, but delicious! Next time I'm going to try whole milk and Greek yogurt as a starter. Again, I have read, (yes, I read a lot!) that this makes a thicker yogurt. :) 


*This author reserves the right to make grammatical errors. I am usually writing while in the mist of many other activities. However, if you notice said errors and inform me via email, I will gladly fix them. :) Thanks for being a loyal reader!

2 comments:

  1. If you use less yogurt you should end up with a thicker product. I use 2tbs of yogurt to 1/2 gallon and mine turns out nice and thick. The one time I did the 1c to 1/2 gallon it was runny. What I read was that the cultures need lots of room to multiply, if they don't have that space they won't multiply so you will have runny yogurt.

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  2. Thanks for the tip Nikki! I will definitely try that. :)

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