Homemade Yogurt

My mom gave me her yogurt machine (Sambo brand) because her first few batches had failed and she gave up. So it was up to me to experiment. My first batch didn’t do as well as I had hoped–it was too sour because I let it ferment for a long time, hoping it would get thicker. Turns out the trick to getting thicker yogurt is either boiling the milk for a long time, or straining it. The other trick for it to not be grainy is to not stir the milk at all.

The resulting yogurt was thick, but not sweet at all. It was up to me to add fruit, honey, and nuts. I will also be using it to make a yogurt dip from the packs of dip mix I got at a farmer’s market a few months ago, and for marinating meats!

Ingredients:

1 liter of milk (4 cups)
1 Packet of yogurt culture (or half cup yogurt)

1. Heat the milk until it boils. The longer you boil it, the thicker the yogurt will be. I boiled it for 5 minutes.
2. Cool the milk down to 108 – 112 F (42 – 44 C). Add starter culture and mix.
3. Incubate at that temperature for about 5 – 7 hours, and then refrigerate. The yogurt will thicken even more as it cools.
4. Top with berries, nuts, honey, granola to your taste. Or strain in a coffee filter lined colander.
5. Reserve some leftover yogurt so you can make more batches.