How to Make Homemade Yogurt

(Or not)

By Kelly Yandell

Homemade yogurt is the epitome of simplicity in the kitchen. All you need is milk, and a culture.

(This is certainly true compared to, say, performing a triple bypass surgery. After hours of research online and several failed attempts with different varieties of culture I settled on a “traditional” type of yogurt starter. Here you will also like to know the difference between thermophilic and mesophilic. You will also want to consider whether to purchase an heirloom culture which can allegedly be used forever, provided you keep making yogurt with regularity, or a non-heirloom which is a one or two use affair. I opted for the non-heirloom after several attempts with heirlooms which seemed to have a personal grudge against me, my family and my kitchen, and refused to become anything but grainy milk. I admit that this was a personal failing and had nothing to do with the product or the culture of culturing. Not every being will thrive in my home. Now that I’m an addict, I will be a customer of the freeze dried culture company forever. Regardless, at this point you will need one All-Clad saucepan, one Le Creuset small Dutch oven filled with ice for cooling the milk, a digital thermometer, a stainless steel All-Clad stirring spoon.)

Heat the milk.

(OK. You will want a stainless saucepan. Not the cheap kind although I’m sure they are perfectly nice. Really. I’ll say it is because of even heating but really I just like looking like a serious person. You may enjoy that extra thrill, too. Do not buy ultra-pasteurized milk. Yes it may last unopened in your refrigerator until the Apocalypse…your guess is as good as mine on the timing of that day. Seems like at least that timeline is speeding up. But the ultra-pasteurization process does something that the experts allege is detrimental to the process of getting your milk to go bad intentionally, which is sort of what we are up to. In a good way. Thank the good Lord that I already had quart jars, lids, starter and an unopened half gallon of 2% on hand. I digress. Heat your milk up gently, while stirring often because every bit of milk that adheres to your pan will cause expletives and scrubbing in an hour or so. Scalding milk and kids do not go together so set them onto an art project or put on SpongeBob. Whatever. Mine are grown so I don’t have to multi-task. With your digital read out thermometer in hand, and you can opt for a $15 up to a $150 model, all available on Amazon and in your hot little hands within hours, stir the milk gently until it reaches 180 degrees. It took about thirty minutes from the time I realized I was out of yogurt until I had the milk up to the required 180 degrees Farenheit.This will kill any remaining creatures or pathogens which might interfere with the culturing process. Remove the saucepan from the heat. Now allow the milk to cool down to precisely 115 degrees Fahrenheit. If you would like to hasten this process so that you might actually get to quilting before noon, you may fill the larger Le Creuset stock pot or dutch oven with ice and gently set the All-Clad saucepan of milk inside, being careful that no melted ice, also known as water, gets in your sterile milk concoction. Here is where I always wonder if I cleaned my non-dishwasher safe saucepan enough yesterday or whether my yogurt will taste of Dawn dishwashing liquid or garlic. But let’s not deal with my “did I leave the curling iron plugged in?” issues today. That is an entirely different kettle of fish which occasionally requires the help of a prescription. Where was I? Oh yes, this is a great moment to film a little video on your phone showing your really cute coffee mug steaming with (somehow) both of your hands cradling it while you wait for the milk to cool. Who is holding that camera? And cool trick making all that studio lighting look like natural light coming in from the window overlooking the field of grass fed milk cows. (I have cows. Seriously. The cows live elsewhere. They eat grass, too. Until they don’t). Don’t let it cool beyond 115 or you will have to heat it up again.This will take exactly enough time to do nothing else, but also enough time to make you feel like you ought to be doing something else.)

Wasn’t that simple? Milk heated! Now, all you have to do is add your culture of choice.

(Again, I chose a traditional thermophilic, direct-set, one-use culture. If you order it directly from the company, which you probably should so that they can make the highest profit and try to pay themselves or their employees a living wage, you will receive it in the mail in a week. Or, do what I did and order the exact same product off of Amazon and have it on your doorstep within 24 hours. It’s a miracle really! Let’s not calculate in the wages of the driver nor the gasoline in the truck, nor the climate impact of Amazon whist we do this. It will bog down your soul and damage your fragile micro-biome, which we are here to fix in the first place. Now, I also try to retain at least two tablespoons of my last batch of homemade yogurt and add it along with the freeze dried culture. This probably does nothing, and may actually be problematic since I eat the yogurt out of the fridge with a spoon, double and triple dipping, thereby inoculating the yogurt with my own personal cooties which I then transfer to the new batch at a temperature of milk which will not destroy those germs and microscopic whatevers. Stir lovingly until the culture is fully incorporated and there are no lumps if you added the old yogurt.)

Viola! Now you are ready for the real magic. Pour the milk mixture into jars and seal them.

(This whole process might possibly be shortened by pouring cold milk straight into the last few bites of Greek yogurt sitting in the plastic container in your fridge. Set it on the counter for 24 and get back to me. I swear to God I have made this yogurt a dozen times and it doesn’t matter whether I pour it over my counter or over my sink, milk goes everywhere. Everywhere. Don’t say funnel. I actually have that green one that I use for canning and jam making (of course I have that and of course I make my own jam…I’ll enter my Cherry Berry Jam in the State Fair one of these days…wait, I don’t need that kind of affirmation or attention)(yes I do)(did I tell you that my last batch of jam didn’t set at all and now I have 5 pints of syrup which I will not use at a cost of about twenty-five bucks and four hours of my precious time, not including the damned dishes…I didn’t?) and I still spill milk everywhere so have a roll of paper towels handy. Or better yet, reusable rags so that you can make your washing machine smell like cheese for the foreseeable future since front load washers are so attractive which is what made you want to buy the damned thing, but they also have their very own mold culturing process which is outstanding and difficult to combat without resorting to immune system destroying chemicals. But that’s what the yogurt is for, right? Micro-biome restored.)

Now let nature do its thing and allow the yogurt to culture for up to nine hours, or until it is set. Try not to disturb it as this can affect the texture of the finished product. It will get tangier the longer it cultures.

(OK, nature is amazing. Totally amazing. Can you imagine being an ancient Egyptian gobsmacked, or rather god-smacked, since reportage is that they thought it was a miracle and not just an organism, watching your flour and water come to life with yeast? Can you? Did you know that women used to be the beer makers? Different, related story. About we witches. Onward. If you want to ensure a moderately uniform outcome you will want some technological assistance here. The target temperature at which you want to keep your unborn yogurt is 112 degrees. Give or take. But only give or take by a degree or two. This can involve buying an electric yogurt maker, a dedicated yogurt-only appliance which costs about fifty bucks. It allows you to go through this whole ridiculous process for six six-ounce containers of yogurt which one family will consume in two days, tops. Also, make sure you have room in your cabinet or garage beside your Instant Pot which you now use bi-annually if you are really on your game. The Instant Pot can also “make yogurt” in that it is a heating device. You are on your own. I tried it for my yogurt. Not doing it again. My instant pot has a perma-chili scent. It’s not an odor mind you, but an eau-du-beef scent which is really chili residue embedded in the rubber gasket. But I’m not buying another set of gaskets. I’m just not. And while I do love my chili, I do not need chili scented yogurt. Or perhaps I do. Obviously I turned to my sous-vide machine, because while I paid several thousand dollars for my double oven a few years ago, and I do love it (not really) it does not hold a low temperature (even though is has an alleged bread proofing function which will ruin bread dough in no time flat as it is pre-programmed at just-sub-nuclear temperature)(did I mention that I’ve had a sourdough starter alive in my fridge for over four years?)(What I don’t admit often is that I have only used it a dozen or so times over those years but I keep feeding the little freeloader like one of my college-aged children but at least I don’t have to do its laundry ever. And I should get a medal for how many times I’ve brought it back from the brink of death). The sous-vide, at about $150, is truly one of my favorite appliances. It is a wand and it hides nicely in my cabinet. While there are cookbooks devoted to its many use-cases, we use it for meat, de-crystalizing honey, and now, yogurt. While you are heating your milk (yonder up at the top there of this super easy natural process) fill a food safe tub with water. It will take a little experimentation to find a vessel which is deep enough but not too deep. I have settled on a 12 quart plastic, industrial food storage bins. Run up to Sam’s and grab you one. I’ll wait. Now, affix your sous-vide wand and set your temperature to 112 or so and wait for the water to warm up. There will be beeping. Now, having acquired reusable plastic lids for your quart Ball jars (I’ll wait. Again. Amazon or Target.) affix them to the jars. Here I recommend rinsing off the sealed jars with clean water before putting them in the sous-vide bucket. Due to the messy nature of the pouring there is always milk on the outside of the jars and, if one doesn’t rinse them off, when one puts them in the sous-vide there will erupt a plume of cloudy milk which then gets sucked into the wand, and gets heated and redistributed for all twelve or whatever hours, doing God knows what high school science fair project inside the appliance. Then one will research how to effectively clean the wand to not cross-contaminate creations, sort of like the milk rags in the front-load washer. Allegedly every food item is well sealed (here’s where you get to also buy a vacuum sealer so you can also become a card carrying prepper…remember the whole Apocalypse likelihood) and therefore resistant to cross contamination, but I’m not convinced. In fact there is probably chicken water flowing through my yogurt bath right now. Place the jars inside the bin of circulating water just up to the base of the lids (Here is where you get a clean coffee cup and bail out some water). OK. I’m exhausted. Let’s take a nap.)

After about six hours you can gently tilt the jar and note whether the yogurt is set. If so, place them in the refrigerator overnight.

(If it isn’t, you can continue the process for a completely unknown and un-predictable amount of time. If as I did, you began at coffee time, this can go easily into post-TV, time-to-go-to-bed-like-old-people-at-eight-thrity time. If you are a gal with three kids trying to keep up with the trad-wives you will be up til one in the morning folding cloth diapers so you are fine either way. At this point, you should remove the jars from the water bath, and let them cool for awhile before putting them in the refrigerator. We do not put hot things in the fridge because it can heat up the air in the fridge, potentially pushing other inhabitants in to the non-safe zone and the whole point of this exercise is healthy eating, right? Now, if you are near bed time and you forget and leave the yogurt on the counter you will awaken to special yogurt that is quite tangy and the safety of which I cannot remotely guarantee. You are on your own. In fact, I’m just telling you how I do this. This is not advice, per se. You are on your own. Disclaimer: while I am a licensed attorney, I am simply a home cook, and while I’d say that my experience level is above average, I do not warrant or guarantee any particular outcome and you are to take all of this with a grain of salt and with a WAIVER AND AGREEMENT TO INDEMNIFY THE AUTHOR, KELLY YANDELL, AND HER HEIRS AND ASSIGNS AND RELATED ENTITIES, REGARDING THE PREPARATION, MANUFACTURE OR SERVICE OF FOOD PRODUCTS AND ANY INSTRUCTIONS OR ADVICE RELATED THERETO AND AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT THAT THE AFOREMENTIONED AUTHOR IS NOT A FOOD SAFETY EXPERT AND HAS NO SPECIALIZED KNOWLEDGE REGARDING THE PRESENCE OF FOOD-BOURNE PATHOGENS, FOOD POISONING OR OTHER HAZARDOUS SEQUELLA OF WHIMSICAL FOOD LARKS SUCH AS YOGURT MAKING AND THE READER PROCEEDS UTTERLY AND COMPLETELY AT THIER OWN RISK. Note how I still remember how to make a warning “clear and conspicuous” in keeping with the Express Negligence Doctrine because I am a (mostly recovered) attorney and not a scientist or a dairy professional or a trad-wife though I sometimes engage in similar hobbies. Also, I totally vaccinated my kids, and on time. Where were we?)

There you have it. Hopefully you have also made some homemade granola because, really, what is better than homemade granola? Nothing. Place a serving of your yogurt in a small bowl and top it with fresh berries, granola, and a tiny bit of local honey.

(At least that is what I do, because if you are not a big yogurt eater you are gonna need to cut that funky flavor with a ton of sugar in the form of berries, granola and honey in order to acclimate to the world of cultured foods. And for your information, a “serving” is a measly 3/4 cup and after I’m done scooping out “3/4 cups” (wink, wink) with the berries, granola and honey, I might as well have just had a massive wedge of cake, calorie wise. After about two weeks you will be eating the yogurt plain from the jar to make sure you don’t miss a day playing host to the aliens who now live in your gut and require maintenance and offerings of organic blueberries. Not the soft mushy ones. Seriously go back to Whole Foods and get some decent berries.)

Your family and your micro-biome will thank you.

(Well that was fun. I do this every few weeks. And I actually enjoy it. And I do absolutely love the yogurt and I’m now rather judgmental about grocery store yogurt. I annoy myself, too. It’s not just you. Sometimes I share my yogurt. Sometimes I pretend it is ice cream. Sometimes I wonder if my intestines can really handle yogurt, kombucha, sourdough bread, and fiber supplements on the same day. Sometimes I wonder how people think these perfect women on their social media feeds of choice manage to look so dewy and fit, whilst their darling, bizarrely clean, genius, un-schooled, cage-free children…dressed in hand made smocks and toddling at their feminine feet do it. I hope, truly, that young women (and men) go to Trader Joe’s on their way home from a gratifying career, for which they are rewarded with health insurance and an actual paycheck, say “fuck it” and buy just-fine cartons of yogurt and totally-acceptable, if not organic and wind-dried, blueberries. Guess what, my kids consumed (gasp in horror if you must) FORMULA. We’re all just trying to survive, right? In other words if you are not a frigging Quaker or a retired person of means (I am not a Quaker) you should probably not make your own yogurt unless you really, really, think it sounds fun. My children are both in college and while I have fed them home-cooked and lovingly prepared meals their entire lives (and homeschooled one of them before homeschooling was “cool”), whilst letting my law license rot (let’s say ferment, shall we?), I cannot say that they are one iota healthier, smarter, or more well-adjusted than had they eaten at Whataburger every single day of their lives.)

You really can create lovely, wholesome, dishes for your family without contributing to the mountains of plastic, or supporting companies that are killing us all with ultra-processed foods.