A homemade yogurt thread

[passedpawn]

I may be wrong - I often am - but I believe the 60 day rule applies to those selling cheese. It's a legal requirement to reduce the possibility of serious, life threatening illness that can come from tainted milk but excluding anyone who is pregnant or whose immune system is compromised, my understanding is that if you can legally buy raw milk from a farm whose herd is certifiably healthy and whose processes are certifiably sanitary then there is no need to pasteurize such milk. The problem comes when dairies (not a single farm with a few dozen animals) mix milk from many herds, and one cow (or goat or sheep) from one herd is sick ...

That 60-day rule applies to imports I think because it's illegal to sell raw milk for human consumption in the US.

I have made cheese from raw milk (I have a local source that sells cow and goat for pets). I heeded the 60-day rule, mostly because it's just part of my cheese timing, not out of health concern. It's awesome for cheesemaking.

 

[bernardsmith]

You may be right - but I think 21 C.F.R. part 133 refers to all raw milk cheese requiring 60 days aging despite the fact that recently the FDA has some evidence that such aging in fact is INEFFECTIVE when the milk (or cheese) has been exposed to certain pathogens (see for example - https://www.fda.gov/downloads/Food/ComplianceEnforcement/Sampling/UCM512217.pdf)
But dairy science is not my field and I may be talking through a hole in my head.

 

[Kent88]

Well dairy science (production and manufacturing) is my wife's field. There is a good reason for the 60 day wait period. I can't explain it myself, but despite her being in favor of raw milk products for herself (she used to love drinking raw milk when we'd visit family who have livestock, but she has been on a bit of a hiatus from that for the past couple years) she is pro-pasteurization when it comes to making things to sell to the public. What I do know is we've heard some horror stories of farms who have illegally sold raw milk products and got caught when people start getting sick.

When she does get started in a raw dairy products discussion usually I hear that you really need to trust that the farmers take cleanliness seriously more than the typical grade-A requirements; that they have a healthy herd with a low somatic cell count; and you need to make sure that you fulfill any legal obligations because I think that you can't just wonder onto a dairy farm with some cash and a milk jug and ask to buy some milk from the bulk tank, you might need to own a cow or a share in the farm.

And if a person who isn't used to raw milk starts drinking it their system might take a while to get used to it, and then you have to be concerned if those symptoms are just your body getting used to it or if there is a pathogen in the early stages of really messing you up.

@bernardsmith I've seen you around a lot on this forum, you seem like a nice person, I really don't want to hear about you getting a listeria infection. Please be careful.

 

[Kent88]

Here is the result of the yogurt I inoculated Wednesday evening.

It came out pretty thick, and there isn't much whey separation. It didn't hold together as well in the bowl as my last batch.

There were two notable variables between the two batches, how I re-pasteurized the milk and the length of fermentation. Last time I brought the temperature up to about 165 on the stove and took it off heat entirely. This time I brought it up to about 155 and put it in a 210 degree oven for half an hour while I prepared other stuff like jars and the workspace. Last time I let it ferment somewhere between 8-9 hours, this time it was a little over 14 hours.

I'm sure there are several other variables that might mess with the consistency, but those were the most obvious to me.

It still tastes good, and there isn't nearly the whey separation as in store-bought. Next time I think I will try bringing the temperature to 165 on the stove again and collect more data.

 

[bernardsmith]

and you need to make sure that you fulfill any legal obligations because I think that you can't just wonder onto a dairy farm with some cash and a milk jug and ask to buy some milk from the bulk tank, you might need to own a cow or a share in the farm.


@bernardsmith I've seen you around a lot on this forum, you seem like a nice person, I really don't want to hear about you getting a listeria infection. Please be careful.

I appreciate your good wishes and your concern. Here in NY I believe that it is quite legal to sell and buy raw milk but under strict conditions and I think that there is one farm (one) that is close by me that is permitted to sell such milk. That said, I very, very rarely buy raw milk - not least because it costs about twice the price of regular milk AND my cheese making techniques is not good enough for me to unequivocally state that I can tell which cheese was made from raw milk and which from treated milk: I use home made kefir to inoculate the milk with cultures and my kefir contains about 20 different bacteria and yeasts so there is a fair amount of complexity added when I allow the milk to ripen for an hour or so before I add rennet - and then to continue to ripen for several hours as I cook the curds and slowly remove more and more of the whey.

 

[FatDragon]

I did a batch a few days ago with the last cup of that yogurt ("Ice Cream Yogurt" with four different cultures and no vanilla, in spite of the name). 960 mL whole fresh (non-UHT) milk, 50 g milk powder, about 50 g yogurt, and about 40-50 g white sugar to sweeten. No repasteurization. Fermented around 12 hours at 39 degrees celsius. It came out awesome, a bit thicker than the source yogurt (like Greek yogurt thickness without needing to drain) and a tiny bit more sour. Whey separation is close to zero. It's miles ahead of my previous yogurt attempts (which I thought were alright but my wife didn't care much for). Got everything ready to make another batch tonight, but I plan on dropping the temperature a degree or so to see if a slower fermentation over the same time frame brings the sourness more in line with the original product.

 

[Kent88]

Neat stuff, Dragon. Think you'll make a little more this time, or do you usually make around a liter?

You add table sugar? I have wondered about adding honey or even fruit to pre-inoculated milk, but I've convinced myself that the lactobacillus will ferment that out as well and the fruit might even add unwanted microbes. Haven't verified those claims, though.

 

[FatDragon]

Neat stuff, Dragon. Think you'll make a little more this time, or do you usually make around a liter?

You add table sugar? I have wondered about adding honey or even fruit to pre-inoculated milk, but I've convinced myself that the lactobacillus will ferment that out as well and the fruit might even add unwanted microbes. Haven't verified those claims, though.

A liter is enough for a batch in my household, maybe even a bit much as my wife never gets around to eating it and always has some reason not to give yogurt to our 17 month-old son. I had most of the remainder of batch 1 this morning and it had soured well past my desired profile with a few extra days in the fridge.

Table sugar was in the first couple recipes I followed and it's in the ingredients list of just about every yogurt on the market, and when I forgot to add the sugar to one batch early on, the result was very tart and lacked almost any sweetness - not very pleasant unless I mixed it with a lot of fruit, and even then I wasn't really into it. I think that over time the sugar will ferment out, so the goal is to eat it before it does or to mix liberally with fruit or preserves if it's too late. I might leave the sugar out of the next batch and see how that goes.

 

[bpgreen]

I thought that the reason to heat the milk before inoculation is that heating it changed something in the proteins.

I've never added sugar, but I like tart/sour flavors.

 

[Kent88]

I rarely eat my yogurt plain, I always have to add fruit of some kind. I was adding homemade jam for a while, but lately I'm trying to add fruit without the sugar. Adding jam to yogurt was really cutting into our jam reserves, as it was probably about a 2:1 ratio of yogurt to jam for a while, so unless I completely fill our small chest freezer with jam, there is just no way I can make it work.

Adding plain sugar to yogurt doesn't really appeal to me, but maybe someday I should try adding a little honey...

 

[FatDragon]

I rarely eat my yogurt plain, I always have to add fruit of some kind. I was adding homemade jam for a while, but lately I'm trying to add fruit without the sugar. Adding jam to yogurt was really cutting into our jam reserves, as it was probably about a 2:1 ratio of yogurt to jam for a while, so unless I completely fill our small chest freezer with jam, there is just no way I can make it work.

Adding plain sugar to yogurt doesn't really appeal to me, but maybe someday I should try adding a little honey...

If I had more jams and the like I would probably do the same, but time, space, and lack of homegrown fruit are all impediments to that plan. I often put yogurt on unsweetened Müsli, so a bit of sugar in the yogurt (pre-ferment) means I can have a bit of sweetness to my Müsli whether or not I have the time to mix in some fresh fruit (or any appropriate fruit on hand, to that matter).

I'll be back home in about an hour to see how round two of this recipe turns out. It's getting a ten hour ferment with the temp set at 37 C (which, with my setup, means most of the time will be spent around 38), everything else is the same except that I inoculated with yogurt from the first batch rather than a fresh cup. I'm expecting it to come out a bit sweeter than the first batch, which should give it an extra day or two of shelf life in the fridge before the sourness takes over the flavor profile.

 

[vnzjunk]

Here is some of my yogurt with rhubarb sauce and raspberries

Love the idea of rhubarb raspberry sauce. I don't have the raspberries available but do take rhubarb out of my garden and run some through a small electric table top chopper then dump it into my home made yogurt. I add a bit of sweetener to it and that is my evening sweet tooth satisfier. I tend to use no cal sweetener but anything one likes would do. Sometimes I throw a handful of raisins in also (non chopped).

 

[vnzjunk]

I also found that if you mix the desert up and place it in the fridge uncovered it will take on a thicker consistency reaching the low end of soft ice cream. Also the naturally red rhubarb color leeches out of the rhubarb lending a nice pinkish color to the yogurt. A little sweetner added to balance the sourness of the rhubarb and you got one heck of a desert . Once the rhubarb is finished for the year I use whatever fruit is in season the same way. I plan on freezing some rhubarb and see how that works also.

 

[Kent88]

So I just ended a run of yogurt that wasn't setting properly. More testing is needed, but I think the problem might have been temperature.

I had started just heating my extra-fortified milk mixture to 165°F, which pasteurizes it in seconds. After asking around, I was told to try heating it up to at least 180°F. Apparently the dry milk powder I add has proteins that need to be denatured or something.

So, after a run of yogurt that was runny and kind of acted like I've heard some pellacles do, I warmed it up more and it firmed up nicely.

 

[bernardsmith]

Hmmm... I wonder if the reason why it firms up is not because you denatured anything but because you evaporated off some of the water. Pasteurizing milk causes the calcium molecules to lose their tails and that prevents the calcium from coagulating. This is why when you use store bought milk to make hard cheese you are advised to add Calcium Chloride. This adds more of the calcium molecules that have the tails needed for the curds to mass together.

 

[Kent88]

I suppose it is possible, but that seems unlikely. I lose next to nothing through evaporation and I have been thickening it up with dry milk the whole time. I think it is probably the heat.

That said, I am not an expert and I have been, I'll say "amusingly corrected", a time or two when I have made wild assumptions about dairy products.

 

[bernardsmith]

ah.. You are adding dried milk. I thought you were using dried milk and then boiling off some of the water. But dried milk adds more calcium and proteins to the milk so you are essentially concentrating the milk and that should itself provide for a thicker yogurt. Why this did not work on your last batch I don't know, unless yogurt needs milk that has not been pasteurized to very high temperatures (in the same way that you cannot make good curds for hard cheese with such milk and you need to add Ca Cl to pasteurized milk - In other words, perhaps th batch of milk was pasteurized to an abnormally high temperature. And that would not be a problem for anyone but cheese makers

 

[Kent88]

I don't think I was using any ultra-high-temp-pasteurized (or whatever the term is) milk. Just regular, store bought, pasteurized milk and adding some dried milk powder.

For my next few batches I will keep raising the temperature to a little above 180°F, and if I get another runny batch I will share that information. But I think that heating the milk to that point must help it set.

 

[beermanpete]

According to an article published by The Univeristy of Alaska cooking the milk longer will help thicken the yogurt. The article is available here: https://nchfp.uga.edu/links/alaska.html

Personally, I prefer the yogurt thin and pourable. Part of the reason I make my own yogurt is to avoid the gritty texture from the thickeners used in commercial yogurt.

 

[Kent88]

Personally, I prefer the yogurt thin and pourable. Part of the reason I make my own yogurt is to avoid the gritty texture from the thickeners used in commercial yogurt.

I have tried some drinkable yogurt products lately. Not bad. They aren't refreshing, I don't feel less thirsty after having one. It's just having yogurt without needing a spoon. It's alright.

 

[beermanpete]

I have tried some drinkable yogurt products lately. Not bad. They aren't refreshing, I don't feel less thirsty after having one. It's just having yogurt without needing a spoon. It's alright.

That makes sense. Too much sugar for good hydration. I don't drink the yogurt. Mostly I eat it on cereal and fruit for breakfast. It is also good in pancakes and waffles instead of buttermilk.

 

[NeilMac]

I used to do Yogurt and now I do Keffir, I let it go a bit till it separates then use cheese cloth to drain and make Tzatziki . This mornings progress.

 

[beermanpete]

According to an article published by The Univeristy of Alaska cooking the milk longer will help thicken the yogurt. The article is available here: https://nchfp.uga.edu/links/alaska.html

I made yogurt this weekend and cooked the milk (goat) for 10 minutes at about 185 F. It did come out thicker than usual but is still pourable.

 

[NeilMac]

Mine is finally drained, now to add the cucumber and herbs.

 

[shelly_belly]

I made my first batch 2 weeks ago. I drained mine and it turned out thick. I've never been a big yogurt eater but this tastes better than any I've ever had. I've been eating it almost daily since.

 

[Kent88]

I got my hands on some raw milk to make yogurt and it turned out pretty good. Hopefully in the morning I remember to post a picture.

Edit: Here it is, before I fold it into some strawberry puree:

 

[shelly_belly]

Wow, that looks so creamy! I would like to use raw milk but it's $10/gallon here.

 

[Kent88]

You can buy raw milk? Around here the only way to get raw milk is if you own cows or a share of a farm.

I guess I should have included that you have to be really careful with raw milk. I've heard/read horror stories of people getting really sick from it. My wife grew up drinking it and has degrees in dairy production and manufacturing, so we know how to handle it.

Since when I make yogurt I always pasteurize the milk it didn't immediately register that I should include a warning, but seriously, be careful. Listeria is nasty business.

As for the differences with other batches, I think it might be a little creamier, and I can tell the milk wasn't homogenized. I also got a new yogurt starter from an in-law so I don't know how much I can attribute to the milk and what should be attributed to the new bugs.

 

[shelly_belly]

In Alabama raw milk can be purchased legally for "pet consumption" only. I did find an organic, low temperature pasteurized and non-homogenized milk in a few stores but it's $9/gallon. It does make some excellent curds. I used it in my Belper Knolle.

http://www.workingcowsdairy.com/index.php/products

Being a beginner I'm using the cheap stuff from Aldi's at an unbelievable 98 cents/gallon. It doesn't set very well but I've found if I use double the calcium, rennet, ripening and set times and slowly and gently cut and handle the curds then the curds are acceptable for cheesemaking.

 

[NeilMac]

I found 2% the best and is the least processed so it congeals better, can always add cream to make it richer, I would add 18% cream when making cheese. Calcium is essential to add.