Our yogurt method is based on the principles in Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking, and on the research by professors W.J. Lee and J. A. Lucey from University of Wisconsin-Madison on commercial yogurt making methods. These sources pointed out two important concepts for creating thick, creamy yogurt: holding milk at 195ºF for ten minutes before culturing,
I found a yogurt maker at my local ARC Resale store. I have wanted one for a while. My mother had a yogurt maker and used it for a while in the 70s. At the time, none of us liked plain yogurt so, after a while, it just became easier to buy a small amount of the sweet stuff from the store. Fast forward forty years and after a trip to India where I learned to LOVE plain yogurt, I found a maker for my northern climate. It was missing a cup so I ordered a replacement online. Unfortunately, my ‘new’ maker is no longer made so the cups had to be found via resale. All set? Yes.
I’m experimenting with different sizes of cups in my maker. The cups online were 1/2 the size of my family size maker but, based on research, it should work. It is a happy mistake so I have different sizes for my varied yogurt eating habits.
Purchased, now it ‘s time to get started. I needed a recipe.
For my Indian friends where no appliance is ever needed, it’s just not consistently warm enough to set out a cultured milk container and have it magically create the lovely food product. Thank you for laughing and rolling your eyes.
Lately with gardening and cooking, I’ve been taking the tact, “I know how it grows. I know how it blooms. Now, I need to know how to kill it.” While this seems like a negative way to approach success, it creates an understanding for the overall process of the science of the cycle of life. It’s part of the experiment that are cooking and gardening. With yogurt, I wanted to understand why I might not need the little machine I have and what it’s actually doing for me. There are a variety of happy, hopeful blogs about, “OMG! Use your (fill the blank) crock pot, oven, camping cooler, etc.” But that didn’t answer the questions I had about ideal temperatures, mediums, why no sugar in the starter, evaluating good starters, why my recipe suggested dehydrated milk powder as an addition to the milk base. This online article covered questions I didn’t know I should have.
Looking forward to pulling out the yogurt from the maker in a few hours. I used my favorite brand of milk, my favorite plain yogurt and some powdered milk from my favorite Middle Eastern grocery. Let’s see what happens!