Making Yogurt!

SockFiddler

Well-Known Member
Messages
623
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
I've recently been trying to "fill out" my regular diet with cheap, easy, reliably healthy stuff that I can grab and eat without a thought. My regular fave of frozen berries and cream was getting a little pricey and (let's face it) even on LCHF you still have to watch those grams of fat a little bit.

Aldi (bless their stack-em-high, sell-em-cheap philosophy) does an AMAZING coconut Greek-style yogurt, but at almost £1/pot it's almost as pricey as cream and berries - and it looks as though there's LOADS of carbs in there. Until I remembered, vaguely, my Great Grandmother, back when I was just a tiny Sock, hauling a great pressure cooker out of the over first thing in the morning, unscrewing the lid and gazing upon the contents with enormous pride.

She'd been making yogurt.

We tend to overlook yogurt as a super-food, partly because the pots seem to have such high carb values (10 - 15g / 100g content), many of them are low fat and, let's face it, quite often it just tastes bad, bland or boring. But, in my recent dairy adventure, here are some fabulous things I've learned about yogurt, including why I could cross-post this entry on the vegan, low-cal... any diet forum:

1. Yogurt, technically, is fermented milk. Except, instead of booze (as when you ferment yeast and hops), your little bacterial buddies produce lactic acid which slightly clots the milk and causes it to turn to the creamy consistency we all expect.

2. To be "yogurt", any product bearing the name must contain at least two bacteria: Streptococcus thermophilus and Lactobacillus bulgaricus. However, there are lots of other bacteria often added for a number of reasons - because they're "healthy gut bacteria", because they add flavour, because they act as preservatives or stabilisers, blah blah blah. But these extra ones won't do the milk-to-yogurt magic.

3. The carbs listed on the side of your yogurt pot are lies! This is FAB news for anyone who, like me, struggles to put half a pot of tasty yogurt back in the fridge but then feels terrible about having just eaten almost 40g carbs in a single sitting. Here's a way to know whether your yogurt contains anywhere near that much (and why).

Lactose is the primary sugar in milk, and what the bacteria munch on when doing their thang. Food companies have to list the nutritional content of their produce as it was at the end of production. But bacteria don't recognise when they've been put in a pot with a little foil lid and taken to the supermarket - they just keep on going. When you open a pot of yogurt and see that watery liquid around the edge (the whey), that's a clear sign that the bacteria in the yogurt is both still alive and still eating away at the sugar content. If, at the moment of consumption, you were to measure the carb (lactose) content of your yogurt, you'd find it to have no more than around 4g / 100g content. Woohoo!

4. That watery stuff is called whey. And it's ludicrously good for you. I know, as kids we all programmed ourselves to think it's gross and nasty (still technically true if you really look into exactly what that stuff is, I guess, but that's true of almost any food) but actually that stuff has a powerhouse of vitamins and minerals in it, in madly concentrated form. Don't pour it down the sink - drink it, stir it back in, drain it into ice-cube trays and cook with it!

5. Anyone can make yogurt with almost any type of milk. And not just cow, goat, sheep etc... but oat, almond, soy etc. Vegans have to decide where they stand on fermentation and bacteria, but if they decide they're cool with the notion of eating bacteria (which, to my mind, can't especially be avoided?) then there are loads of options available when it comes to yogurt. I'm trying an almond milk yogurt recipe next week - I shall report back.

6. You don't need fancy equipment, pots, god-like levels of hygiene, patience, any kind of cooking skill or, really, anything at all to do it. Plus it's SUPER cheap, brilliantly healthy and gives diabetics an any-time go-to snack food that we can stuff our faces with and just get healthier.

Wanna see how it's done? Cool.

Sock's Idiot-Proof Yogurt Recipe.

You need:
2.2 litres (4 pints) milk - Full fat tastes best, I haven't experimented with the non-dairies yet.
1 450 - 500g pot of live-cultured yogurt. Doesn't matter if it's low fat, Greek, whatever - it's all the same bacteria. Pick one whose flavour you like, though, as that'll have the blend of bacteria that produce a flavour you like.
A cooking thermometer (I do a weird mix of farenheit and centigrade. Apologies. I'll try to translate)
A big, lidded pot that will fit in your oven OR lots of towels and a sunny spot.

1. Take your yogurt out of the fridge and let it sit on the side for a bit. It needs to warm up to wake up the bacteria.
2. Heat your milk in the pan to around 80c / 200f. This kills off unwanted bacteria and sort of softens the proteins to make it a smoother, cleaner-tasting yogurt. Some people advocate boiling: I see this as a waste of your time. Stir continually to stop the milk burning on the bottom.
3. At 80c / 200f take the pot off the heat. Leave to cool for about an hour.
4. When milk is warm to the touch (about 40c / 110 - 120f) get a mug and half-fill it with your warmed milk. Then mix that mug in with your room-temp yogurt. When the milk is all dissolved in the yogurt, add the whole thing back into your milk. This is a really cute step as it's essentially like inviting the bacteria to come and party and feels a little ceremonial and lovely (like when you're introducing new fish to an aquarium and want them to feel comfy and not shocked in the slightest).
5. Cover with a lid, put somewhere warm where the temperature will remain roughly consistent at 80c / 110f. An oven on "warm", a sunny windowsill, an airing cupboard. Temperature = time, and your bacterial buddies will be happiest at this range, though still do their work at cooler temps - it'll just take longer.
6.DO NOT TOUCH, JOSTLE, PEEK AT, MOVE, DISTURB YOUR POT IN ANY WAY FOR 4 HOURS.
I cannot underline how important this is. And it's for fascinating reasons that are, on the whole, too complicated to go into here. But, trust me, you'll mess the whole thing up if you peek at it too soon, give it a shake, disturb it. Those bacteria are super-fussy and like their privacy while they're getting rolling.
7. Go do something else for a while. Watch a movie. Have a nap. Play some Fallout 4. Go for a walk. Watch some people get married on telly. It's up to you - you're not going to want to bother that pot for between 4 and 6 hours and it's best if you're distracted.
8. Put into pots - label REALLY CLEARLY with the date, and refrigerate. It'll keep for about a month. I tend not to flavour it at this point (I want the bacteria to cool their heels, and anything I add will just hit them up with more sugar).

Plus you can now use your own home-made yogurt to culture your next batch. If you treat it nicely, you won't need a new starter culture for about 6 uses. Nicely = keep it cool but not cold (the fridge is fine) and don't make it wait too long; about a week is where you want to aim it, which is fine, as 4 pints milk makes more than enough yogurt for me for a week. 6 descendants from a shop-bought pot is about the max. If notice your yogurt isn't setting as expected or tastes sour, you've pushed your bacteria too far and it's time to start over - try a different type or brand of yogurt and make sure their live cultures are listed with the ingredients.

Golden Rule: The longer you leave it, the thicker (and more tart) it will become. But, oh no! You want that lovely, creamy Greek-style without the tartness that needs sugar to balance it out?!

Don't worry - I've got you.

Optional Step 9, for Winners and Those With The Fancy-Pants.

Get a strainer and some kind of fine cloth that doesn't have bits and is nice and clean. Put the cloth in the strainer, put the strainer over a bowl, put your yogurt in the strainer, put the whole thing in the fridge.

This step will drain out more whey than separated during the fermentation process, leaving you with a creamier, thicker finish without the tart flavour that comes from leaving it in the oven for longer. Keep the whey, though - you might find you accidentally over-strain and can always whisk what came out back in again, or you can cook with the stuff, putting it on soups, sauces, stuff.

Last Word on Flavours and Stuff

I /love/ desiccated coconut in mine, but I tend to add it the night before for breakfast the next morning as it takes a little while for the coconut to fluff up and spread the flavour. About a dessert spoon will do 400ml when left overnight.

Frozen berries are still fab, especially if you smash them a little before adding them. Then you get little bursts of flavour and it's especially brilliant on hot days.

Further experimentation has lead to 400ml yogurt, a handful of ice cubes, a handful of frozen raspberries and blueberries and about half a pint of milk being thrown into a blender to make a smoothie.

Yet further experimentation lead to this being turned into ice lollies - though my next go at this will see me sieving the smoothie mixture before freezing to get the seeds out. Not a problem, just not what you expect in an ice lolly.

Have also used my yogurt as a base for Coronation Chicken (still working on that recipe) and various dips, though if you're going savoury with your yogurt, it tastes better if you leave it for longer as you get a thicker, slightly tangier flavoured yogurt. I've got a theory that I could make a seriously brilliant Caesar and / or Ranch dressing, I just haven't gotten around to trying it yet.

Enjoy!

Sock xx
 

becca59

Well-Known Member
Messages
2,856
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
Even simpler, use UHT and a yoghurt maker. Mix 1 pint milk and two starter tablespoons of yoghurt in the yoghurt maker container. No need to heat, plug in and leave over night. Easy peasy!
 

Brunneria

Guru
Retired Moderator
Messages
21,889
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
Way back when I was eating yog regularly, I used the Easi-Yo yog maker and sachets.
Blown away by how easy.
Disappointed at the high price.

So I dusted off my Blue Peter Badge, and started making it myself - just as @becca59 says.
Used the Easi-Yo cannister, but added one litre of UHT full fat milk, 2 tablesppons of the previous yog batch, and a couple of tablespoons of powdered milk - to thicken it up a bit.

8 hours of solid ignoring on the kitchen windowsill, and voila! a litre of yog.

Nowadays I have kefir. Nicer taste, better benefits. A bit more hassle to make.
My downfall with kefir is that it has to be fiddled with daily, and my attention span and routines don't always allow that.
 

Resurgam

Expert
Messages
9,850
Type of diabetes
Type 2 (in remission!)
Treatment type
Diet only
When I worked at Lyons I used to make my own yogurt from the powdered milk, and the yogfruit without the sugar syrup - I had an oven with a pilot light so I used to make up a large jar of concentrated milk put it onto my heavy iron griddle, place it on the cooker top over the pilot light for a couple of hours after dinner, then add some starter before going to bed and leave it overnight. It was very easy and never went wrong.
I used to move the jar into the fridge in the morning and mix it with various flavours of the fruit mushes as I liked.
As I did testing in the factory I could get all sorts of things at any stage of the manufacturing process.