Homemade Yogurt

This is our original tutorial on making yogurt, but we've bettered it! I've found that the kids love orange, vanilla or other extracts in the yogurt with a small amount of honey. Honestly, it tastes just like Greek Gods yogurt IMHO, but is half the price.

Great thing about this yogurt is you can add in anything you want!


What you'll need:

• Milk (the higher the fat content, the creamier it will be, I used 1%). Raw milk would make a great greek yogurt too!
  
• Yogurt starter (I used Fage 2%), you'll need to get some without any additives, something organic if you can. You can also use freeze dried starters like Yogourmet.
  
• Crockpot
  
• Heating pad
  
• Candy or meat thermometer

What you'll do: 

You start by heating the milk to 180º. Now this is important. You'll want to make sure you heat it up till it gets foamy on top. This will kill any bad germs right outta this milk. After this, either put the pan in in some ice water (be sure to not get water in your milk!) or you can just set it aside. When it reaches 110-115º, you're ready to go. I just filled my sink with ice water and set the pan in there, sort of like a double broiler, it took about 5 min to cool down.

Next, you'll add in your starter. Now, how much milk you've used will determine how much starter you'll need. For every half gallon of milk, you'll need tbsp of starter yogurt. I used an entire gallon of milk and an entire carton of Fage 2%. Stir it up good now.

Next, set your heating pad to Medium. Mine has four settings, warm, low, med and high. High was able to keep my yogurt at 112º for 8 hours. Also, if yours is like mine, you'll need to keep turning it on once every couple of hours, as it has an auto shut off. Also, make sure to put the heating pad on a cutting board and not on your counter, you don't want to ruin your counter!

So, just shut the lid, cover with a towel and you're ready to go! Come back 8 hours later, and you'll have yogurt! Now, I went a step further. I tripled some cheesecloth, and put it in a colander, and then added the yogurt and let it drain overnight in the fridge. This drains the whey from your yogurt and takes it from being a runny thin yogurt to a creamy greek goodness. 8 hours in the fridge or so, was plenty. I also used the whey to water the tomatoes in my garden, which helps keep blossom end rot at bay.
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