Post by wybroncos on Mar 26, 2016 10:46:25 GMT -5
If I am crazy someone can let me know, and maybe someone has already mentioned something similar to this, but I think I found the easiest way to make yogurt so I figured I would share it here. I love yogurt but am pretty busy and I hated washing all of the pots, crockpot, cheese cloth, strainer, etc that it would take to make a batch. So what I have started doing is putting milk into quart jars and putting them in a pot of water on the stove to bring the milk to 160 deg (or 110 for raw yogurt). The pot that I use for this hold 5 jars at a time but I do not need to do that many if I am not making that much yogurt. This really does not take too long and I just stir the milk a few times to keep it from getting a skim on the top. After all of the jars reach their temp I pull them out and replace the water with cool water, the jars go back in until the temp comes back down to 110. Then I add the yogurt starter, mix well, and put them in an ice chest with 115 deg water. I might have to change the water out once or twice to keep it warm enough. Then when it is done incubating if I want to strain the yogurt I put a 12" X 12" piece of butter muslin over the top of the jar and secure with the band. I turn this jar upside down on top of another jar and let it drain while the yogurt is cooling. You have to "burp" the jar every once in a while or it will stop draining. Then when the yogurt is cool and done draining I put a lid on it and stick it in the fridge. The only thing I have to wash afterwards is 1 spoon, a little square of cheese cloth, and the thermometer!
I had tried the crockpot method before but it took way too long to heat up and cool down. Then I could never keep it at 110 deg no matter how hard I tried. I have enough jars and other things to wash in a day so I was trying to reduce the number of things that I needed to clean. If I start this in the morning right after milking it seems to work out pretty good. After the jars are in the ice chest (or hot water chest) I just check on them every hour or so and can pretty much carry on with my day and not have to worry about them too much. I put the ice chest in front of the heater in the utility room with a horse blanket over it. Then the yogurt will be straining and cooling while I am fixing supper. I dunno, that is how I do it!
I had tried the crockpot method before but it took way too long to heat up and cool down. Then I could never keep it at 110 deg no matter how hard I tried. I have enough jars and other things to wash in a day so I was trying to reduce the number of things that I needed to clean. If I start this in the morning right after milking it seems to work out pretty good. After the jars are in the ice chest (or hot water chest) I just check on them every hour or so and can pretty much carry on with my day and not have to worry about them too much. I put the ice chest in front of the heater in the utility room with a horse blanket over it. Then the yogurt will be straining and cooling while I am fixing supper. I dunno, that is how I do it!