I made some of this Saturday or Sunday and have it all consumed as of this morning.
Here's what I did and what I'm going to change in my next batch tonight.
4 cups of milk 1%
1/2 cup of powdered milk
1/2 cup Chabani 0% Greek Yogurt (MAKE SURE IT HAS ACTIVE CULTURES!)
Heat the milk to 170-180 degrees. While you're heating it up stir/whisk in the powdered milk. Keep stiring to heat the milk evenly and keep from burning it. Once you've reached temperature pop the pan in the fridge and monitor the temperature.
You need to keep the mixture at about 110-115 degrees. There are a few ways to do this. What I consider the easiest is to take your crockpot and set it on "warm" with water to keep the temperature constant around your mixture. This setting should be somewhere around 115 degrees, check it to make sure. Another option is if you have gas oven with a live pilot it may stay warm enough to keep the oven around 110 degrees. For those of us with electric ovens you may be able to set the heat low enough (ours only goes down to 170). I could preheat the oven a little and then periodically warm it up (this seems like a pain).
There's also a possibility of using a cooler and a heating pad to create a warm environment. You'd have to experience with settings and temperatures.
Check your milk in the fridge!!
When your milk mixture reaches 110 (give or take) degrees (takes about 10 minutes maybe? I checked every couple minutes) pull it out and stir/whisk in your yogurt. Mix it as well as possible. This introduces all the nice bugs that make yogurt so yummy, if it's too hot you'll kill them, temperature is important.
Everything I've read about this part says "USE GLASS CONTAINERS"... I'm assuming that's because you don't want plastic that could be easily scratched and harboring harmful bacteria. I used new plastic containers that I washed/rinsed well. I will be using glass tonight "just in case".
Take whatever container you decide to use and pour your milk mixture into it. I put a cover on mine and placed it into the "bath" in my crockpot.
Now you wait. Times here vary from four hours to as much as 18! I did my first batch at about 6 hours and it was pretty good. My understanding is the tanginess gets more as the yogurt gets more time to grow. If you like less tangy, leave it in for about 6 hours. Once your yogurt is done in the warmness take it out and let it cool some before placing in the fridge. Don't stir it or shake it or do anything disruptive. After it's cooled a little pop it in the fridge. I've heard that letting it sit before touching (two days) it at all may make the consistancy better. I left mine overnight and part of the next morning.
My first batch was pretty good for a first run I think. What I'm going to change... I'm going to use whole fat milk. My yogurt was a little bit chalky. Not bad, but a little. This is a result of using skim or 1% or even 2% which can create a chalky flavor from what I've researched. Whole fat is supposed to help remedy the chalk. It also had a few "chunks". You could see them but not really chew them. Occasionally I'd notice one when I was eating it but it wasn't like it was grossing me out. I think that I might have just barely scortched the milk and then scrape that off when I was mixing. That may have caused these clumps. I know my yogurt didn't seem to dissolve all the way either but according to what I've read that shouldn't make much of a difference.
Option: In reality one of the main separation points, at least in my opinion, between "regular" yogurt and Greek yogurt is how thick it is. Right now after you've refridgerated your yogurt you really just have regular yogurt with Greek yogurt cultures (is there a difference?). Like store bought there will be a little whey riding in your yogurt. You can stir that in or dump it off. But if you want to emulate Greek yogurt you need to strain the yogurt. To do this I took my colander and lined it with about 5-6 unused coffee filters. I put a bowl under this and dumped the yogurt on top. Put it in the fridge and let it drain. I think mine drained for a few hours and probably could have used a little more but this got rid of A LOT of whey. I stirred the yogurt lightly occasionally during this time. When I was done kinda slid the whole mixture to the edge of the strainer and dumped it into another bowl to store it in. Then I pulled out the coffee strainers which came out very clean. I was worried I was going to end up wasting a bunch of yogurt that stuck to the filters but I was wrong.
I gave it a pretty good stirring and covered it. Been enjoying it for breakfast all week!
Results:
Here's what I did and what I'm going to change in my next batch tonight.
4 cups of milk 1%
1/2 cup of powdered milk
1/2 cup Chabani 0% Greek Yogurt (MAKE SURE IT HAS ACTIVE CULTURES!)
Heat the milk to 170-180 degrees. While you're heating it up stir/whisk in the powdered milk. Keep stiring to heat the milk evenly and keep from burning it. Once you've reached temperature pop the pan in the fridge and monitor the temperature.
You need to keep the mixture at about 110-115 degrees. There are a few ways to do this. What I consider the easiest is to take your crockpot and set it on "warm" with water to keep the temperature constant around your mixture. This setting should be somewhere around 115 degrees, check it to make sure. Another option is if you have gas oven with a live pilot it may stay warm enough to keep the oven around 110 degrees. For those of us with electric ovens you may be able to set the heat low enough (ours only goes down to 170). I could preheat the oven a little and then periodically warm it up (this seems like a pain).
There's also a possibility of using a cooler and a heating pad to create a warm environment. You'd have to experience with settings and temperatures.
Check your milk in the fridge!!
When your milk mixture reaches 110 (give or take) degrees (takes about 10 minutes maybe? I checked every couple minutes) pull it out and stir/whisk in your yogurt. Mix it as well as possible. This introduces all the nice bugs that make yogurt so yummy, if it's too hot you'll kill them, temperature is important.
Everything I've read about this part says "USE GLASS CONTAINERS"... I'm assuming that's because you don't want plastic that could be easily scratched and harboring harmful bacteria. I used new plastic containers that I washed/rinsed well. I will be using glass tonight "just in case".
Take whatever container you decide to use and pour your milk mixture into it. I put a cover on mine and placed it into the "bath" in my crockpot.
Now you wait. Times here vary from four hours to as much as 18! I did my first batch at about 6 hours and it was pretty good. My understanding is the tanginess gets more as the yogurt gets more time to grow. If you like less tangy, leave it in for about 6 hours. Once your yogurt is done in the warmness take it out and let it cool some before placing in the fridge. Don't stir it or shake it or do anything disruptive. After it's cooled a little pop it in the fridge. I've heard that letting it sit before touching (two days) it at all may make the consistancy better. I left mine overnight and part of the next morning.
My first batch was pretty good for a first run I think. What I'm going to change... I'm going to use whole fat milk. My yogurt was a little bit chalky. Not bad, but a little. This is a result of using skim or 1% or even 2% which can create a chalky flavor from what I've researched. Whole fat is supposed to help remedy the chalk. It also had a few "chunks". You could see them but not really chew them. Occasionally I'd notice one when I was eating it but it wasn't like it was grossing me out. I think that I might have just barely scortched the milk and then scrape that off when I was mixing. That may have caused these clumps. I know my yogurt didn't seem to dissolve all the way either but according to what I've read that shouldn't make much of a difference.
Option: In reality one of the main separation points, at least in my opinion, between "regular" yogurt and Greek yogurt is how thick it is. Right now after you've refridgerated your yogurt you really just have regular yogurt with Greek yogurt cultures (is there a difference?). Like store bought there will be a little whey riding in your yogurt. You can stir that in or dump it off. But if you want to emulate Greek yogurt you need to strain the yogurt. To do this I took my colander and lined it with about 5-6 unused coffee filters. I put a bowl under this and dumped the yogurt on top. Put it in the fridge and let it drain. I think mine drained for a few hours and probably could have used a little more but this got rid of A LOT of whey. I stirred the yogurt lightly occasionally during this time. When I was done kinda slid the whole mixture to the edge of the strainer and dumped it into another bowl to store it in. Then I pulled out the coffee strainers which came out very clean. I was worried I was going to end up wasting a bunch of yogurt that stuck to the filters but I was wrong.
I gave it a pretty good stirring and covered it. Been enjoying it for breakfast all week!
Results:
