yogurt maker / making yogurt

[yajorome]

We go through huge amounts of yogurt each week and want to give making it a go. I'd like to get some sort of yogurt maker - does anyone have any recommendations?

Thrilling thrilling post on a Wednesday night, but we're a day away from the full moon, so it might be an interesting discussion.

Probably not, admittedly. But I'd really like some advice, thanks.

bumping for you as it interests me too

a bottle of milk.

a tablespoon of plain, live yoghurt.

cover and place somewhere warm (like the airing cupboard) for a couple? hrs until it sets

at home i used to put it in the oven which had a pilot light. I think they say somewhere around 40-45 degrees c.

I've got my MIL's old yoghurt maker from mid 80's! It's like kwt says. Mine has 6 small jars and you add half a tsp of live yoghurt to each jar and top up with uht milk and stir in well. It has to be uht or you have to heat up ordinary milk first. The machine heats up the yogurt (to 40degrees as I recall) and leave it for 6 hours. It's less tart when I make it than the bought natural stuff.

if you heat up the milk first, make sure it cools to around 45 degrees C before you add the yoghurt culture or it will kill off the natural bacteria before it can do its work.

All you need is some milk - warm, and some active (live) yoghurt and a food flask - mix and put in food flask, leave for 6 hours or so (overnight, whilst out at work...) and pour out. Once you've got it going you can use the end of the current batch to make the next.

I don't have a flask, otherwise I'd try that. And I don't have anywhere that's a consistent 40-45degrees, bah. I thought about on top of the refrigerator, but it wasn't that warm. Guess that's probably good in general, but not for yogurt making.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I might go ahead and buy the yogurt maker you linked to, Loopsymumsy, as I just spent £9 for yogurt for the week. Argh. I feel like I'm stealing your Christmas present for some reason, but have reminded myself you wouldn't have linked to it if you minded me getting one. If it works well and we use it, it should pay for itself in a month or so. I quite sadly calculated that it would take us 3 1/8 weeks, in fact.

Thanks for all the help. Might start another thread asking about a new showerhead...

do you have a cool box? you could put water in it at the upper end of the temp. then put the warmed milk and yoghurt in a separate contaier to sit in the 'bath', making sure it comes up nearly to the yoghurt's level. check every hr and a half or so that the water temp is still alright. remove some of the cooled water and bring back to the correct temp.

I highly recommend the basic lakeland one.
www.lakeland.co.uk/product.aspx/!3440_3441
Its so easy
Basically you switch it on. Shove in a couple of spoons of live bio yogurt. then pour on a litre of full fat uht milk. Go away for 8 hours and when you come back you've got a litre of yogurt. We've been doing it for several months now.

Save a couple of spoons of that for the next batch. Once a month or so use a fresh yogurt for the starter so that you don't get any funny bacteria creeping in. Only had that happen once when I really pushed it and it was easy to tell because the yogurt had a really odd texture/smell.

also for flavoured yogurt. Any time you've got fruit thats going a bit soft/old then simmer it with just a touch of something like honey, maple syrup and any spices like cinnamon. Freeze it in batches and then you can add it to your daily yogurt.

I've tried the old thermos flask trick and its not as consistent as the yogurt maker.

I got that lakeland yog maker recently. I also got an extra bowl so theres one to use while the other is in dishwasher.

I always use fresh 'starter' yogurt - DH didn't like the idea of accidentally breeding up some other culture. We use skimmed UHT milk. Put it on at bedtime, ready in the morning. Dead easy.

However... DH loves thick greek style yogurt, which is not what you get from this. So (after having some warm on my muesli) I strain the rest through muslin-lined sieve. Muslins also from Lakeland. This makes really thick yog - I sometimes have to stir back in some of the liquid. The yield is not huge but its really thick and creamy even though lowfat.

It arrived a couple of days ago and we're having the first batch now. It's lovely - nice and tangy. A bit runnier than our normal yoghurt, but fine for us. I'm going to strain some as well and will do up my old fruit like you recommend for flavouring.

Am looking forward to having an endless supply! Thanks for all the advice.