Hipster, Amish, or Poor: Make your own Yogurt

Ok, ok, I know the title of this post could be somewhat offensive. It’s not meant that way, it’s just something one of my cousins said to me after I FORCED her to try spoonful of my first ever batch of home made soy yogurt. Mmmmm, sounds tasty, right? She didn’t think so and was making fun of me for not getting in my car, going to the store, and purchasing my yogurt, soy or otherwise, like the rest of the people in the United States of Amurica.

Before I share my recipe with you, I’d like to take a moment to decide if I am hipster, Amish, or poor:

Hipster:

Luckily, the internet has a quiz for everything and I took one this morning to determine my hipster status. You see, I’m not a hipster.

 

Amish:

Believe it or not, there’s not a quiz (that I can find) on the internet about being Amish. That’s probably not very P.C., again, blame my cousin. She came up with it.

Luckily, I know a few things about myself that would immediately rule out my being Amish. I like to drive in cars. I like caffeine and alcohol. I did find this paragraph on a website about Amish traditions and history, which I found pretty interesting, but again, I like electricity and my current yogurt making method requires it.

The story of the Pennsylvania Amish community dates back to the 16th century Reformation in Europe, when the Anabaptist movement spurred the creation of three “plain” communities: the Amish, Mennonites and Brethren. Although these spiritual groups have similarities, the Amish are the most conservative, emphasizing humility, family, community and separation from the non-Amish world, which includes a reluctance to adopt modern conveniences such as electricity. 

I am decidedly not Amish. That said, I did find some pretty amazing looking “Amish” recipes on Pinterest while dilly dallying around the interwebs while writing this post. Apparently, funnel cake is Amish, who knew?!

 

Poor:

Well, by process of elimination, I guess that’s it, I’m poor. But please, don’t feel sorry for me, we just don’t have a ton of cash on hand at the moment. My bank account is the only thing in my life that makes me feel “poor,” and as far as I’m concerned, money really can’t buy happiness. But it can by yogurt and I love yogurt.

Since Little Miss Neala has pretty terrible reflux, I decided to see if I could make any changes to help improve her discomfort. A few friends and family recommended I stop eating dairy, and what do you know, it actually helped! Unfortunately, I really, really love cheese and yogurt. The rest I could do without but man, not those two. (I still haven’t figured out the cheese thing) So, I started buying soy yogurt, which is EXPEN$IVE!! I needed an alternative and that’s when I stumbled upon a recipe for making soy yogurt that does not require a yogurt maker! I modified it just a bit and here’s the result (please excuse my poor quality photos, I’m not a food blogger, just a chick with an iPhone).

Non-Dairy Yogurt

Ingredients:

1 quart non-dairy milk (the first time I made it I used part coconut and part soy)
1/4 cup non-dairy yogurt (you could also purchase the probiotics to add instead of using purchased yogurt, but this is how I did it)

Supplies:

1 quart jar with lid
Instant read thermometer (this is what is recommended but I have a candy thermometer that worked well)
Medium sized pot
Wide mouth funnel (like one you’d use for canning, this is not completely necessary unless you’re like me and when you pour from pot to jar, you’re likely to lose half the contents of what was in the pot)
whisk

Make sure all of your supplies are either sterilized or VERY clean. You can sterilize in the dishwasher or in boiling water.

Pour the milk into the pot and heat over medium low heat until the thermometer reads 115º (If you go over, you can just wait for it to cool a bit. If the milk is too hot it will kill off the cultures in the yogurt.)
While the milk is heating, put the 1/4 cup yogurt in the prepared jar
Pour the heated milk (via wide mouthed funnel) into the jar and whisk to combine and make sure that the yogurt isn’t all stuck at the bottom of the jar.

Here’s the part where being Amish wouldn’t work:

My oven has a proofing setting (for making bread dough rise) and I used this setting to keep my yogurt just the right temp to culture. So, if you have a proofing setting, preheat your oven and when it’s ready to go, put the lid on your jar full of liquid, wrap the jar in a towel (not sure this is really necessary, but it made the jar look cozy, which is obviously really important), and put it in the oven. Wait about 6 hours and then check the yogurt. It should be mostly solid-ish (like store bought yogurt) and taste a little tangy. If it’s still sweet or too runny for your liking, put it back and check every 2 hours.

If your yogurt is a bit liquidy, you can strain off the liquid (whey) using cheescloth or a coffee filter.

If your oven does not have a proofing setting, this might just take a bit longer because the idea is that your liquid stays around 115º while it cultures. The first time I made it, I filled an insulated ice bucket with boiling water to heat it up, dumped it out, and then put the jar inside and covered the outside with towels. My culture took almost 24 (!!!) hours and had a lot of liquid which needed to be strained off. Basically, you’ll want to come up with a method to keep the jar as warm (without going over 115º) as possible. One blogger recommends using a cooler with a pot of boiling water on one side, jar on the other. Whatever works for you, just know that if your temp is a bit lower or gets progressively lower, it may take longer to culture. Also, I’m not a food safety expert, but I don’t imagine you’d want to go much longer than 24 hours before you call it quits and put the creamy goodness into the fridge.

So there you have it, a not very professionally written or photographed recipe for yogurt. It really is easy and it really is good. I highly recommend trying it!

If you’d like to see the original recipe (this recipe explains the cooler/boiling water method of keeping your yogurt warm), you can find it here.