ironymaiden | basic homemade greek yogurt (Reply)

i've been doing this for several months now and promised

varina8 i would share. recipe is mostly from Make the Bread, Buy the Butter with my observations added. i love the results - it's high-end Greek yogurt for the cost of milk. it takes a long time to get the end product but the hands-on time is pretty brief. (if my household were still eating bread i would use the whey from this in a no-knead bread recipe. similar ethos.)

1/2 gallon milk (whole is best but you can use reduced fat and skim. i have only used whole.)
1/4 cup yogurt or whey (store bought yogurt with live cultures, homemade from a previous batch, or whey from a previous batch. i use the whey because i would rather eat all the yogurt.)

read the whole thing before you start, you may want to follow my method for creating a warm place for incubation (the note in step 3).

In a large saucepan over moderate heat, warm the milk until it is on the verge of a boil. You can either stir constantly to prevent the milk from sticking to the bottom of the pan, or spend five minutes scrubbing when you're through. Your call. (I don't scrub, I put oxyclean and hot water in the pot overnight. the milk skin will lift out, often in one piece.) The target temperature is 180F/82C, i just put a food thermometer in there and set its alarm at 180. this step does something to alter the milk protein and is supposed to make thicker yogurt.

Remove from the heat, pour the milk into a bowl, and let cool to lukewarm. It should be between 110 and 115 degrees F / 43-46C to activate the cultures. If you don't have a thermometer, you should be able to put your clean finger in the milk and hold it there for 10 seconds, but still feel heat. You can speed this cooling up with an ice bath, but i find letting the bowl stay warm will help hold the optimal culture temperature longer.

Stir the starter yogurt or whey into the lukewarm milk. Cover with a clean, damp dishtowel and leave the mixture undisturbed in a warm place overnight. Don't get hung up on the temperature of the warm place. You can just turn the oven on for a few minutes, turn it off, and put the yogurt inside. note: I use the oven as my warm place - I set it to Hold Warm with the pizza stone inside while i'm doing the initial heating on the stove and then turn it off when the milk comes off the burner. If the ambient temperature of the oven is warmer than 115F/46C by the time you put the yogurt in, it seems to be no big deal as it takes a long time for the liquid to heat from outside.

The next day, you will have about a half gallon of yogurt. If you like runny yogurt, you're done, but if you prefer thick Greek-style yogurt, you'll need to drain it. Put a piece of cheesecloth or white cotton, such as a clean old pillowcase, in a sieve set up over a bowl. I use a colander lined with muslin but originally used damp coffee filters. Scoop the yogurt into the sieve and drain for a few hours at room temperature until the yogurt is as thick as you like it. i will scrape down the sides every once in a while to get more yogurt in contact with the draining surface. Depending on the fat content of the milk and how long you let it drain, you'll have between a quart and a quart and a half of yogurt. I like my yogurt really thick and so my yield is more like 3 1/2 cups. The whey keeps for up to 10 days in the fridge and can be used for a variety of things; mine gets used as an additive to dog food (Leela loves it and it's a good probiotic) and sent to mimerki for breadmaking. Scoop the yogurt into a jar, cover tightly, and refrigerate. It will keep a week or so.

Notes:

i like to start it before bed and let it incubate overnight, then put it to drain when i wake up. i find i want it to incubate for at least six hours, and then drain for a similar amount of time.

use yogurt you like as the starter. mine is based on Fage and tastes like Fage.

sometimes it gets lumpy in the draining process. if you don't like that, a few pulses with an immersion blender will clear it right up and make it look like very fancy commercial yogurt.

i tried doubling the recipe, but the hands-off heating doesn't work with larger volumes of milk. there was secret burning and that lead to a smoky-flavored batch of yogurt and more work to clean the pan. also, it did not really double the output. so i just stick with the 1/2 gallon and make it more often.

my routine has it down to one pot, one bowl, the colander, and one piece of muslin. pour from pot to bowl, use the muslin as the "damp towel" covering. when incubation is done, line the colander with the muslin and set it in the sink, scoop in the yogurt. make sure nothing's left sticking to the bowl, put the colander on the bowl to drain.

i have screwed up the temperature and killed the culture. i have then successfully brought the batch of milk back up to temp in the oven (more food thermometer with a temp alarm) and added more culture and had yogurt come out fine. i'm sure this is not good food handling but my household ate all the resulting yogurt and we're still alive. please don't take that as medical advice.