Fermenting Greek Yogurt- Take Two!

Today was my second trial at making greek yogurt! It went a lot smoother this time because I knew what to expect, and what to do.

I followed the same procedure as my first attempt on my last blog post.

Although this time, I found that it took less time for the milk to heat up, but it took FOREVER for it to cool down, almost an hour this time! Every time I stirred the milk, the thermometer would go up! It was a long process. It still smelled a lot like mac and cheese too!

The consistency of my yogurt before straining it was about the same as last time- extremely runny. But after I had strained it, and let it sit in the fridge for about an hour and a half, it thickened up. It thickened up a lot quicker this time too. Not sure if it's because I used a different refrigerator to let it cool in or not.

The yogurt tastes really bitter, and I don't really like it. I added some vanilla extract to it to give it al little flavor but it's still bitter. I'm going to bring in some maple syrup and honey for the class to mix into it to make it more enjoyable!

Hope you've all enjoyed, and I can't wait for you all to try it!

Attempt One!

Day 1: First Attempt at Greek Yogurt

Today was my first day attempting to ferment greek yogurt. To save time, I decided to use a pan on the stove instead of a crock pot to speed up the heating process. It only took about 20 minutes to heat up the 8 cups of raw milk to 185 degrees as opposed to 2.5 hours in the crockpot. The cooling process only took about 30 minutes to get it from 185 degrees to 110 degrees.

Above was the first step. I poured 8 cups of raw organic milk into a pan and set the stove on low heat until the milk reached 185 degrees. It was important to not let the milk get to a boil though. I didn't notice much going on other than it smelled like mac and cheese!

Above was my next step. After the milk had reached 185 degrees I took it off the burner and let it cool down to 110 degrees which only took a half hour. Once it reached 110 degrees I poured in this starter culture that I had in my freezer. I made sure it was stirred into the milk well. 

Next, I poured the milk/starter culture mixture into 3 mason jars and put them in a pan of hot water and covered them with a lid and some kitchen towels to keep warm. This sat on my stove for 6 hours. At this stage in the process, the 'yogurt' was still the consistency of milk- really runny. 

Above was the last step in my greek yogurt process. 6 hours passed and I took the jars out of the warm water. The yogurt was still really runny. But since I was making greek yogurt, I had to strain out the whey. The whey appeared to be a yellowish-clear substance in the bottom of the bowl. The yogurt was still a bit runny, but I put the 3 strained jars of greek yogurt in the refrigerator over night and surprisingly, the yogurt turned out to be the consistency I wanted. It was bitter at first but I added maple syrup to fix that!

Hope you all enjoyed!

Fermenting Greek Yogurt 

Hi everyone,

I am going to try to make greek yogurt. I am always eating yogurt so I thought it would be cool to make some of my own. I think this will be a great experience for me!

The ingredients and items needed are:

• Crockpot
• 8 Cups of milk (preferable organic or grass fed)
• 1/2 Cup yogurt with live active cultures 
• Strainer
• Cheesecloth or coffee filters

Instructions for this include:

1. Pour 8 cups of milk in the crockpot
2. turn the crockpot on low and let it sit for 2 1/2 to 3 hours
3. Turn the crockpot off, and let it sit for another hour
4. Stir in the 1/2 cup  live culture yogurt into the crockpot
5. Cover the crockpot and let it sit for 8-12 hours
6. Once the yogurt is to the consistency you want it, strain the yogurt into the cheesecloth or coffee filter to make the greek yogurt. 
7. Place it in the fridge once it is done

Link to the instructions I used:

http://breakingmuscle.com/recipes/diy-fermented-foods-part-1-easy-homemade-yogurt