It seems the learning curve for vegan yogurt making is quite steep... of the 4 attempts ive now made, one worked great, and half of one maybe worked.
I say half because each batch is made in 2 tubs and one tub smelled absolutely horrible and had a weird hydrophobic skin on top, and the other half seemed...OK. maybe. Its straining right now; we'll see. I am a little bit afraid to try it so I will not attempt that until I've seen (and smelled) it strained and refrigerated overnight.
One thing ive finally figured out is that while the recipes from the yogurt incubator and the ones from the culture and also all the ones I've found online call for 8 hours of incubating; it actually needs more like 18-20. Ive been putting it in for 8 and then its still totally liquid so I put it back in for another 10 or 12 and then its finally thickened up. I dont know if thats due to the culture i was using (im now out ...) or because of the rennet or what. But yeah, 8 hours just gets you warm milk full of bacteria.
Im hoping this half batch turns out because I would prefer not to buy more culture, but i also found last week that my yogurt is only good for about 3 days. Which means making more yogurt every 3 days to keep the starter alive (unlike a sourdough starter you cant just feed and discard extra in-between batches of bread, it seems). I dont know if thats gonna be doable. I dont even run the dishwasher that often, and everything needs to be washed in-between batches obviously.
Anyway... if this batch doesnt turn out i might try buying actual skyr culture, which may or may not work with soymilk ?? Unclear. I dont understand the process at all so im sort of just blindly doing stuff and seeing if it results in yogurt.
This has also been pretty expensive--mostly in soymilk because finding soymilk that is just soybeans and water is difficult. The first brand i bought had 12g protein per cup of milk and the second brand only has 9g, but the first one averages out to like $2 a cup, which is absolutely crazy and not cheaper than simply buying (worse quality) yogurt. The other one is more like $1 a cup which would be significantly cheaper over time than buying it, and of course, would have a lot more protein and no added sugar, which is good for me personally. So im going to stick with it at least until I run out of soymilk (I have 3-4 more batches worth). But man, it is mysterious.
