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.

We do ours in our Instant Pot. Very easy. Only problem is that we have to make sure we don’t run out because the shop bought stuff is horrid in comparison.

I was making yogurt all through lockdown. The only reason I'm not doing it now is that DH is the main yogurt eater and he prefers Greek.

We have a simple yogurt maker bought from Lakeland years ago (not the 'easi Yo' or whatever it is they sell with expensive kits).

Use UHT milk, basically they've done the boiling for you, and freeze dried culture.
If you want yogurt of a decent thickness without straining it, add some dried milk powder - more if you're using skimmed milk, less if it's whole milk.

I'd warm it up a bit just by putting the inner pot in the microwave for a minute.
Couldn't be much easier really.

Having made a batch using the starter culture, we would then save 4 tiny sealed pots of about 2 tablespoons each in the fridge to use as starter, and start the next batch using 2 tablespoons straight from the pot. This cuts the cost of the culture, and these batches don't take so long to mature - probably more organisms in them than the pinch of powder from a sachet I guess.

You could make further generations I suppose but there's a risk of introducing something you don't want

If you want to make 'Greek' yogurt you can strain it through a muslin but this significantly reduces the yield and is a bit of a faff.

I make ours in the slow cooker using a 2l bottle of whole milk and store it afterwards in 1l glass container. Its fab and has improved my guts no end

I have made it using a pint wide mouthed thermos or similar. Pour in the contents of a tin of evaporated milk and top up with boiled water. Add a tablespoon of bought starter, put the lid on and leave overnight , or for long enough. Then refrigerate.

If you do it in your instant pot you need to change the seal and super clean the pot and lid or your yogurt tastes like cumin.

Love my homemade yoghurt in my ninja foodi. So easy. I use really good full fat milk. If you prefer greek yoghurt you only have to strain the yoghurt using a tea towel in a colander.

I have a cheap electric pressure cooker that I use just for yoghurt, but we are a family of adults so I make 5 litres a time. Just put in a couple of tablespoons of live yoghurt, 5 cartons of UHT milk and a couple of tablespoons of milk powder, use the yoghurt program on the pressure cooker, and then I put the inner pot straight into the fridge. I strain mine because I like it thick, but other people spoon it straight out of the pot. I make a couple of pots a week, dread to think ow much it would cost me if I was buying that much.