Anyone make their own yogurt?

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Western Red Cedar
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Re: Anyone make their own yogurt?

Post by Western Red Cedar »

Alphaville wrote:
Thu Mar 11, 2021 11:17 am
last night as i was going to sleep i had a thought of making ranch dressing with yogurt. i'm not a ranch dressing type of person, but maybe those who are could use yogurt as the base.

buttermilk is close to a lean watery yogurt and... oh look, wikipedia mentions yogurt:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranch_dressing

yeah. apply to salad.
A couple weeks ago DW made some homemade buttermilk house sauce with a yogurt base. We ended up putting it on pizza instead of salad which is probably about as unhealthy as you can get. But, at least it was a homemade pie and a homemade dressing. It was some of the best ranch I ever tasted (store bought yogurt though so we still have a ways to go).

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Alphaville
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Re: Anyone make their own yogurt?

Post by Alphaville »

Western Red Cedar wrote:
Wed Mar 24, 2021 8:38 pm
A couple weeks ago DW made some homemade buttermilk house sauce with a yogurt base. We ended up putting it on pizza instead of salad which is probably about as unhealthy as you can get. But, at least it was a homemade pie and a homemade dressing. It was some of the best ranch I ever tasted (store bought yogurt though so we still have a ways to go).
ranch on pizza... you guys californians? :D

dairy and wheat is a natural pairing though, no shame in that game-- healthy, in fact. aminoacids in milk (high lysine) supplement the wheat (lysine deficient) and add nutritional value. and ofc homemade beats supermarket goo.

start making your own yogurt... it's the easiest, and good bang for the buck. as you can read in this thread, there's a bit of a learning curve to get it going, but once it does... it just keeps going.

i just finished fermenting another gallon today. all will be strained for labneh (see videos above), and then i'll gather a bucket of sour whey to... attempt booze :D

you can use whey to make bread though. bit of a shortcut to sourdough that way: you get the lactobacillus without waiting for the scoby, and you get the tangy taste, plus the whey proteins help achieve a beautiful maillard reaction as with enriched doughs but lean.

mooretrees
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Re: Anyone make their own yogurt?

Post by mooretrees »

I clabbered whole unpasteurized milk recently. It's really too fermented, but not bad. I added honey to offset the intense fermentation flavor, but it's not that tasty. I'm hoping someone has some suggestions for how to use it so it doesn't go to waste. It really needs to be mixed in something or dialed down in intensity somehow.

Clabbering is sorta like making yogurt but doesn't involve heat or addition of other bacteria. I covered the milk and left it on the counter for five or so days. I wasn't really sure anything was happening but on day six or so, I noticed that it had congealed.

Not sure I'll do this again, was just curious about what it would taste like. Any suggestions for how to use it are appreciated!

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Alphaville
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Re: Anyone make their own yogurt?

Post by Alphaville »

ive never had clabbered milk. my mother grew up on that stuff. she says they'd leave it on a sunny windowsill and it would just congeal the next day. but lactobacteria is lactobacteria: same difference, i think.

so assuming similar: honey is acidic too, and somewhat funky, so i can see why it would not fix.

maybe add salt, strain, make cheese? salt tempers acid too, so maybe. and heat! so chile, or hot sauce... so yeah, strain and eat with salt and chiles. for indian version search for spicy paneer.

alternatively: use a mellower sweetener like maple or molasses? im currently off the sugar though so i wouldn't recommend :D

mooretrees
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Re: Anyone make their own yogurt?

Post by mooretrees »

Hmm, salt and chilies sounds really good, thanks! I knew you'd be the one to chime in with good suggestions :D

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Alphaville
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Re: Anyone make their own yogurt?

Post by Alphaville »

my pleasure! let us know how it turns out.

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Alphaville
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Re: Anyone make their own yogurt?

Post by Alphaville »

updates:

1) i finally scored a pound of (white) raw soybeans. i'll have to see how to process them. i've seen the folks at noma do things with them, i'll have to check what applies to me. soybeans from scratch: can't promise yogurt yet. just cooking them first.

2) purchased a pot just for making yogurt--it's a $20 ceramic-lined insert for the 6qt instapot, which works only with slow cooker mode, not with pressure. the point of this tool is: a) i can keep the yogurt in the pot longer without acid reacting with the metal, and b) i can free up the machine for other uses (pressure cooker, convection/airfyer, etc) in the free metal. no need to process the yogurt right away. this enables a smoother/more intensive workflow with the machine. also got a silicone lid, $12, which lets me store the ceramic lined container directly in the fridge. so i don't need to move the yogurt to secondary containers.

3) been gathering sour whey also in a cambro bucket where i used to make bread dough (bread is on hiatus for the season). i have a gallon now, will study non-starch uses for it (no bread, no pasta. but maybe fried chicken marinade). drank some the other day for my guts--a cup should only have 4g sugar left in it when well fermented. curiously enough the thing has not spoiled or developed mold for a month now. i think the acidity is keeping things in check.

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Alphaville
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Re: Anyone make their own yogurt?

Post by Alphaville »

just quickly to add a brief note that whey-marinated fried chicken (sour whey, from strained yogurt) is spectacular.

for reference search "samin nosrat buttermilk fried chicken" and apply sour whey instead of buttermilks. i found an old timey looking page and just skimmed through it: it's not rocket science. chicken pieces in a gallon bag. soak.

close those loops, baby...

(now i need to find a marination jar to avoid wasting pastic bags. i wonder if i should whey-marinate all meats...not kosher btw.. except fish?)

i need a supply of herring.

white belt
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Re: Anyone make their own yogurt?

Post by white belt »

I'm re-reading my earlier posts in this thread and for some reason the thought didn't occur to me to just replace my casein protein powder with yogurt in my pre-bedtime meal (yogurt protein is majority casein anyway). I still have a few month's supply of casein powder left so I'm going to use that up first, but afterwards I'd like to experiment with making my own yogurt from milk following the instructions in this thread.

I was complaining about spending ~$.70 a day on bulk casein powder to get my 35 grams of protein in that last meal. Just replacing with Aldi brand greek yogurt brings that cost down to ~$.24 a day. Making yogurt from a gallon of the fancy organic milk would come out to ~$.12 per day (half that if I just use conventional milk).

However, I do recognize that this is replacing a non-perishable item (casein powder), with a perishable item that requires refrigeration (milk then eventually yogurt). I've read online that traditional yogurt doesn't require refrigeration, but this is counter to contemporary/mainstream/industrial food safety advice. Has anyone experimented with storing homemade yogurt unrefrigerated?

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Alphaville
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Re: Anyone make their own yogurt?

Post by Alphaville »

i'll leave yogurt out cooling overnight with no negative effects, but longer might not fly, especially in hot weather. might work in a root cellar around say 50F? but not forever. you might have to salt and drain and move your process towards cheese.

but maybe you could keep the caseine as backup, and eat fresh yogurt while available?

i keep cans of whey in my storage, but lately i've been using more fresh milk for the probiotic etc benefits.

plan for graceful degradation so to speak? if no milk, then powder. ofc be mindful of expiration dates and cycle your backup.

white belt
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Re: Anyone make their own yogurt?

Post by white belt »

@Alphaville

Ok that makes sense. It seems I misunderstood the preservation timelines of various dairy products prior to the advent of modern refrigeration.

Based on some non-academic internet sources, it seems like storage timelines without refrigeration are something like this:

-milk: <24 hours
-yogurt: a few days
-cheese: weeks to ~forever

Something like a root cellar could prolong these times by keeping things cool. It seems the limiting factor with yogurt is the taste will get too sour and eventually you will run into mold problems.

This is all stuff I’m still trying to wrap my head around since in US culture we are so obsessed with constant refrigeration (e.g. eggs must be refrigerated).

Things start to make more sense if you have fresh access to dairy (goats?), because then you’re getting a daily flow of milk that you can turn into other products as needed. Of course this is a rarity in modern western society, but maybe we’ll see a return to it someday.

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Alphaville
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Re: Anyone make their own yogurt?

Post by Alphaville »

the other issue with storage is fat rancidity, which as you know is bad, not just bad as taste but bad for you.

eggs in the usa are refrigerated because the cuticle is removed. my former farm egg supplier would eat eggs that had been out for six months he said (in cool temps not hot, like 60F or something). but once washed and polished eggs become permeable to bacteria amdnit's all downhill from there.

eggs can be pickled for preservation though.

anyway hippy stores in my area sell raw/unpasteurized milk. it's $$$$. in the past there was danger of tuberculosis, brucellosis, and i don't know what else from raw milk, so these must be held to very high health standards to be allowed like that.

btw my father in law used to drink goat milk growing up, he says, but his mother boiled it first, even in the boonies.

i think cheese in a cave is the traditional way to store casein long term. tasty too, mold and all--especially with a good mold, and great increase in market value should you want to unload some.

eta: goat milk is purportedly healthier in many respects, so worth an extra look for the superior nutrition.

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Alphaville
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Re: Anyone make their own yogurt?

Post by Alphaville »

yogurt updates:

last batch we had a bit of a chaos due to post-pandemic reorganization and i used milk 2 days past the date. tasted a little bit..."ripe" but not bad. boiled it anyway. then in the chaos forgot to inoculate it all day. opened to find slightly curdled milk but not stinky. so then... inoculated and fermented 8h, but saved part of existing culture for 2nd inoculation should this batch go the way of stank (i always do this, but this time more consciously).

at the end of fermentation the caseine had curdled like a disk, like a queso fresco almost, or a more solid cottage cheese, floating in whey. funky but tasty. i did not save a portion of this for next generation. probably i should have.

put the caseine disk in the strainer, didn't get much more liquid out. tried also reboiling the whey to get ricotta but chaos again broke the process and i ended up tossing all the whey for various long reasons. big waste there--oh well, one learns.

the near-cheese was good but not quite so i put in the food processor added a bunch of salt. this nailed it--now i had a creamy salty funky spread, somewhat related to feta in flavor. we ate it with cucumbers, bell peppers, tomato, olive oil, etc. very good.

will do next batch with fresher milk but more aged (reserved an extra week or more) culture. what will happen? no idea. but fun!

--

also i have the bag of soybeans sitting in the pantry but don't yet feel an appetite for them. the thought isn't exactly mouthwatering. good thing about dry beans is they keep long, and one can wait for the right time...

...

eta: just finished reading this: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annal ... es-extinct
might inspire me to age milk even further than 2-3 weeks...

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Alphaville
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Re: Anyone make their own yogurt?

Post by Alphaville »

ssssssso my older backup culture (extracted from the batch prior to consolidated disk) worked great and fermented quickly. whey had started to separate by itself around the edges of the pot when i stopped the thing at 8h. i let it cool outside covered, refrigerated overnight, and began straining 1/2 gallon the next day (which was yesterday).

so, the whole cycle for one gallon is boil and let chill overnight, start 8h warm fermentation in the morning, finish and let cool outside in the afternoon, refrigerate overnight, the following morning reserve next inoculum and begin straining 2qt... later in week do the other 2qt.

this yogurt from a longer-waiting inoculum has a more interesting and funkier flavor ("cheesier") than previous versions. some population balance must have altered in the long wait, favorably for flavor profile, at least for my taste. maybe i picked up some extra wild stuff with all the openings and closings too.

in any case i am now going to salt the leftover half gallon before straining, like the labneh makers do. the first half went down unsalted.

i've been bottling the separated whey in snap-top bottles, and it keeps well refrigerated for several weeks so far. i've used it as "recovery" drink after bicycle rides etc, salted and mixed with a bit of frozen berries for good flavor, nice drink. who needs gatorade?

i've got this production line pretty much down now, but i'm looking forward to presalted yogurt versions. just trying to figure salt % at this point so it comes out right. my previous pseudo-feta was just eyeballed but so good. also curious about how presalted whey will keep in bottles. maybe indefinitely? :)

anyway another interesting thing to add could be the capability to freeze-dry backup cultures for long term storage. e.g. if milk runs out or i lose fresh inoculum. i've no idea how to freeze-dry but will investigate.

and i still have the dry soybeans stashed for future fermentation... not the right time yet. i've also started considering doing natto instead of yogurt, which... maybe?

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Alphaville
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Re: Anyone make their own yogurt?

Post by Alphaville »

Alphaville wrote:
Wed May 12, 2021 8:15 am
so, the whole cycle for one gallon is boil and let chill overnight, start 8h warm fermentation in the morning, finish and let cool outside in the afternoon, refrigerate overnight, the following morning reserve next inoculum and begin straining 2qt...
i've noticed that this time around the whey didn't seem to filter as clear. i might want to let it settle an extra day in the fridge before straining. or maybe i'll reprocess the whey to extract more solids.

in any case we ate some of the new strained yogurt batch with a few raspberries last night and it was glorious. tasted almost like crème fraîche. wow.

--

eta: i've now salted the remaining ~2qt at ~1% of the equivalent water weight of the volume

so in metric: ~2000ml liquid get ~20g salt (used kosher salt just pure nacl). tasted it, doesn't appear too salty, but have to wait after straining to see how the salt distributes in the separated phases. will it follow the more liquid whey? will it stick to the thicker caseine, and if so how much? i don't know yet.

white belt
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Re: Anyone make their own yogurt?

Post by white belt »

Alphaville wrote:
Tue Mar 03, 2020 12:02 pm
Yeah! Instapot all the way. The simplest recipe (I’m lazy).

1. Dump 1/2 cup plain yogurt into the bottom of the instapot.I like Siggy skyr.*
2. Pour a gallon of pasteurized milk over it (I like full fat). Whisk a bit if you wanna.
3. Put the closed empty gallon bottle back into the refrigerator
4. SKIP THE BOILING ETC and just Incubate on instapot setting on “yogurt” for 12 hours directly. Your yogurt is finished.
5. With the help of a ladle and funnel, reserve 1/2 cup of the resulting brew in a small container. Refrigerate well.
6. Funnel the rest of the cook back into the gallon bottle. Refrigerate and use as needed.
7. The following week, restart with the 1/2 cup you reserved.
Is this still the recommended procedure for making yogurt in an instapot? Seems simple and just about the amount of effort I'm willing to put in.

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Alphaville
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Re: Anyone make their own yogurt?

Post by Alphaville »

white belt wrote:
Sat May 15, 2021 1:19 pm
Is this still the recommended procedure for making yogurt in an instapot? Seems simple and just about the amount of effort I'm willing to put in.
yo-- 1/2 cup ok for the initial seed from commercial , but reduce eventually to 1/4 cup forward, as too much inoculum makes the culture gummy.

J_
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Re: Anyone make their own yogurt?

Post by J_ »

@Alphaville, on the other thread I have read how to make soyamilk direct from soya beans. Say I have cooked the beans, can you tell me the best way how to proceed to make soya-yogurt?

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Alphaville
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Re: Anyone make their own yogurt?

Post by Alphaville »

J_ wrote:
Sat May 15, 2021 2:00 pm
@Alphaville, on the other thread I have read how to make soyamilk direct from soya beans. Say I have cooked the beans, can you tell me the best way how to proceed to make soya-yogurt?
i don't know yet! im reading up on it this weekend--but i have my soybeans and the instapot ready.

but if we all experiment and share notes something good should happen :D

--

eta: i always look for "simplest," "easiest," "basic," etc.... so, e.g. i will use no agar recipes.

also a note: i was unable to find actual soy yogurt at the supermarket (!?!). it's all coconut, cashew, even oat... so i bought a "plant based" one to add to my mix. in the rush i forgot to check if the cultures were even live. :lol: 🤞

looks like making soymilk is step #1... unless i can just puree the cooked beans? that would be my preferred choice... why not?

--

eta: the soy stuff is here: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=11895&start=20
Last edited by Alphaville on Mon May 24, 2021 9:53 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Alphaville
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Re: Anyone make their own yogurt?

Post by Alphaville »

a couple of notes from recent ferments:

last week i fermented another milk gallon but let the can sit in the fridge quietly a couple extra days before straining. it came out a perfect custard and it strains clear.

the previous batch where my inoculum was getting old and it tasted amazing like cheese... did not strain superclear. significant caseine particles in the whey.

and the other half of that batch, where i added salt before straining, gave me an even murkier whey, totally milky , plus the strained mass was very small. not sure if it's because i had an old culture that didn't curdle the caseine enough, or because the salt broke whatever structure there was. the caseine in that was has been settling at the bottom of a bottle.

nevertheless the salted "cheese" was creamy and incredible with cucumbers and green onions and olive oil. wow!

i'm hoping the new batch gives me the best of both worlds with great flavor and texture. the culture seems to have strengthened from the previous batch, so maybe i have a more balanced mix of bacteria now.

in other news i drank a whey i bottled that was over a month old and it tasted fine and it was great. i didn't write the bottling date on it on purpose because i like to keep kitchen things lo-fi. but might have been around six weeks old. good drink though, it hit the spot.

in the future i'd like to add a bit of salt, and maybe carbonate some bottles. should make a great summer drink, chilled, salty, to recover from the heat. so here's to the possibility of whey soda. will call the beermaking place again re: co2 and regulators, etc... wow it's been over a year since i last thought of carbonations. pandemic flew by... it was not a bad year for me--antifragility is a thing.

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