To buy a yoghurt maker?

[User280905]

While walking round an air-conditioned supermarket today I was thinking about what changes I could make.
We eat lots of yoghurt. Lots of plastic pots and lids, often wrapped in packs of 6 for extra plastic.
WIBU to try to make my own? Would I just be buying another gadget that would end up unused in our cupboard? Would the kids eat home-made yoghurt? They do eat natural yoghurt, sometimes with honey in, so it doesn't have to be fancy fruity yougurts or anything.
Pleae tell me your yoghurt making experiences before I buy something pointless.

you don't need one.
I make my own yoghurt. You need a starter - you can buy a "live" (bio) plain yoghurt and use that. Leave the yoghurt out so that it comes up to room temperature. Boil a litre of milk for 10 minutes and then cool it to between 42°~37°C. Whisk in 2-3 tablespoons of the yoghurt into the milk, put it in a 1litre container and wrap it in a couple of big towels, and then leave somewhere warm-ish (eg a sunny windowsill or by the immersion heater) for at least 8 hours. (I leave mine for 24 hours). Stir it well and put in the fridge. Make your next lot from either the leftover yoghurt from your first starter pot, or a couple of spoonsful from the first lot you made. I overlap mine so that i always have a lot of yoghurt available.

Those are instructions for regular milk. (make sure the fat content of your milk and your starter yoghurt is the same). If you want to use UHT milk no need to boil it for so long, heat it to over 42° then cool and do the rest as above.

I have been making milk this way since i was a girl (I'm an ancient crone now).

I make yogurt in my ninja foodi. It is delicious. I’ll never go back to bought

I’ve been wanting to make yoghurt in my instant pot for a while to cut down on plastic but am worried it’s going to end up costing a lot more than shop bought. How much yoghurt do you get from say 1l of milk? Also if you do it with uht does it have that horrible uht taste?

My experience: my husband bought one 18 months ago. It joined the gadget cupboard and hasn't even been taken out of the box 🤷‍♀️

I am sure that the method described by Brefugee works but is much easier and probably quicker in a yoghurt maker.

I have one bought from Lake Land several years ago. I don't think they have exact same model anymore but I think they gave similar.

I use it all the time, well at least once a week. A few teaspoons of live yoghurt starter then I use UHT whole milk. You don't need to heat it at all, just use it straight from the carton. Eight hours then cool and chill in fridge. Save some at the end of the batch to start the next batch. Every so often replace with a new starter.

We have it on cereals which is why we get through so much.

Sometimes I strain it through a paper coffee filter to get Greek yoghurt. I think the later Lakeland model includes a filter.

It is one of those kitchen gadgets I would definitely replace if it broke.

@Brefugee exactly what I was about to write.

We have done this for 9 years now! And pass some yogurt to relatives when away and they keep it going and pass back.

Don't buy the gadget op. Use this method. It is really easy and is cheaper

Omg that sounds like a huge amount of faff and work. Op why not get an instant pot or similar that has that function and many other as well.

Also if you vary the amount of time you leave it before you put it in the fridge (I do it all in German so I'm not sure - it's called the "ripening" stage? maybe fermenting?) you can get really thick yoghurt without straining.

It's one reason i make sure to boil my (not UHT) milk for around 10 minutes then cool down. It makes the yoghurt really thick without an extra stage.

Thanks for that suggestion @5foot5 . I have the lakeland yogurt maker - always heated my uht milk but such a faff getting it to the right temperature. I'll give your method a go as we get through so much yogurt every week 😋

Middle ground is to just stop buying small pots and buy the largest size of natural or Greek yogurt. Tesco do a 1kg size. It's a bit more expensive than buying the milk but not much.

From 1 litre of milk you get 1 litre of yoghurt!

No you don't get the horrible UHT taste. I can't stand the taste of UHT in drinks. We tried it once when we ran out of fresh milk as I always have a stash of UHT in for yoghurt. Bleugh! But the yoghurt tastes of yoghurt

Yes @Tropicalsunshine , that's what we do. And then recycle the big pots.

@boobashka UHT is at room temperature when I use it as it doesn't need to be kept in fridge.

👍 @5foot5
Looking forward to trying this.

I use same method as @Brefugee

Its not a faff - basically its boil milk in pan or microwave, cool, stir in yogurt, leave for 8 hours.

If you use an instant pot its boil milk in instant pot, cool, stir in yogurt, leave for 8 hours.

Same amount of work either way.

I would suggest you try the non gadget method first to see what length of fermentation you like and because its easier to tweak things.

i used to have a yoghurt maker, with 6 little glass pots (square in section to fit on the base plate) which was also an egg boiler (so German ) it was easy enough and i made sure that when i'd eaten the 4th pot i made new yoghurt right away - but then you have to decant the yoghurt so you have enough pots.
I use 1 litre glass jars and i have 3 of them so i can always "leapfrog" the production process. But then. I eat a LOT of yoghurt :)

I do the same as brefugee but don't boil it for 10 minutes, just heat up to just before boiling.

I have some 1 litre jars that I've knitted cosies for that I put them into.

So heat to boil, leave for 30 mins, pour into cosied jars which have a spoonful of yoghurt in them and leave for a few hours.

Oo! Tell us more!

Happy to Google, but any useful tips v welcome.

Boil milk, cool to body temperature. Stir in 2 spoons of live yoghurt.

Put it in a food flask/yoghurt maker, anywhere it will keep warm for a few hours.

I have a cheap yoghurt maker that I use, but it's only to keep it warm.

Don't get sucked into Easy Yo or whatever, just make plain yoghurt then stir in honey/passion fruit/coulis whatever to flavour it.

You can also add dried skimmed milk when you add the yoghurt to the milk to make it extra creamy.

I have made yoghurt the @Brefugee method. Heated milk in heavy bottomed casserole dish, added live yoghurt when it seemed warm, wrapped casserole dish in towel and left it.

Pros: it was incredibly easy and the yoghurt was great
Cons: it was obvious I was not going to do this every week, gadget or no gadget

I have some 1 litre jars that I've knitted cosies for that I put them into.

that sounds great! I currently have a kind of styrofoam thing that the jars go into but if ever that breaks or i can't use it I'll make a quilted cover.

Rats. We don't have that NF.

Back to the old yoghurt maker it is.

Agree about easy yo, I use the yoghurt maker which is essentially a flask but don't use the packs. Really expensive and I've had mixed results with them.

Used to wrap them in tea towels, but ds1 is a compulsive tea towel user and i got fed up of hunting for available ones! Took me less than half an hour to do one...

It's a great way to get good bacteria and cut down on plastic.

I bought one from lake land, followed the instructions unsuccessfully 3 times and nearly gave up but thought I'd try UHT and it's amazing.

UHT doesn't taste like it used to!

Now I use maybe 4 tbsp yoghurt plus a carton of UHT from the cupboard, 8 hours later perfect yoghurt.

If the kids want fruit yoghurt you can mix in jam/compote or make them a fruit corner by simmering frozen fruit with a little sugar.