Yogurt making in an ice chest

Yogurt making in an ice chest

Postby OTW » Thu Jan 12, 2017 3:29 pm

I'm new to the group so please forgive if this has been covered, but a search in this thread pulled up nothing on yogurt making. It’s fun to do off grid, far better for you than store bought and costs well under half what storebought does, either regular or Greek. And no junk ingredients!!

Here’s what you need. A room temperature ice chest, one or more mason or other jars of the same size (quart or pint) and an instant read thermometer. The setup will be hot water poured into your ice chest (125 degrees is ideal), filling it only as high as needed to not seep into your jar(s) once they're added. That's your incubator. Once the yogurt jars are entered into the warm bath in the ice chest, you close the lid and forget it for 8-9 hours. Note that you do want to locate the chest in a warm place where it won’t be disturbed at all, so outside off path is ideal, either in partial shade if it’s hot or if not, you can blanket-wrap the ice chest to keep it snuggled in. As the 8-9 hours goes by, the water temp will reduce but that's fine. Just keep it blanketed or warm otherwise. Once done, don't toss the bath water, you can use it for dishwashing, cleaning or whatever. So that's the setup and how to incubate the yogurt. Very simple! Hot water in an ice chest. Pffft.

Procedure for MAKING the yogurt: Simpler than dirt. Heat milk to 180 degrees. That’s just shy of scalding where it climbs up the pot. Then cool it back down to 115-118 degrees. Add 1 Tbsp. plain yogurt from store (your beginning culture or "starter") PER 1 Cup of milk used. Mix thoroughly but gently. Cap jars (plastic caps are fine) and place into your warm water bath within ice chest, making sure the bath water stays below entry level. Re-wrap ice chest with blanket if using one. Then just leave it alone 8-9 hours. No moving, no bumping, nothing. (Proteins are mating.) After the 8-9 hours, refrigerate yogurt jars overnight. If you want Greek (thickened), there’s another step. You just plop the yogurt into a fine mesh strainer (cheesecloth is traditional but messy whereas reuseable mesh basket coffee filters work GREAT and most supermarkets have them). About an hour in strainer (can do in fridge) will drain the whey out, leaving a thicker yogurt.

Now! If you want to watch your dog trance out from decadent, slurpy-sleepy pleasure, give the whey to dog. Lots of protein! (I personally think it takes them back to newborn days.) I actually use it for bread baking in place of water.

Once fully cold, spoon a serving into a bowl and whip it a bit with your spoon, then flavor it. You can use jam or maple syrup, done deal – or what I use is a very thin wedge of lemon or lime, squeezed to its death to get every drop PLUS honey and sometimes also PLUS a few drops vanilla extract. Honey has very good health benefits and the yogurt itself is super good for women due to the calcium, protein and our unique “fauna and flora.” It keeps about a week in fridge. I don't like plain yogurt, but with flavoring (sky's limit) -- actually I've gotten totally addicted to it. But admit, it's just always really really fun to make it.
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Re: Yogurt making in an ice chest

Postby monik7 » Thu Jan 12, 2017 8:21 pm

This sounds interesting. I'm just not sure my skills in the kitchen will be good enough to end up with anything edible. You never know though. Might be worth trying. I might surprise myself.
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Re: Yogurt making in an ice chest

Postby elkriverrats » Thu Jan 12, 2017 9:49 pm

Great post, thanks! Homemade yogurt is easy and tastes delicious! I follow the same procedure but in a crock pot. Wrap the crock in a towel and place in oven overnight. We add frozen fruit and make smoothies...no sugar and nothing you can't pronounce :) Never would have thought of using an ice chest, love it!
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Re: Yogurt making in an ice chest

Postby snowball » Thu Jan 12, 2017 11:44 pm

thanks for the recipe/method...have wondered how to do it
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Re: Yogurt making in an ice chest

Postby OTW » Fri Jan 13, 2017 6:12 am

You're welcome, I just got into yogurt making in the last month and have tried it in the oven under just the oven light (blanketed with a dark fleece jacket), in a EuroCuisine 7-jar yogurt maker and in a Dash Greek yogurt maker which is designed to make it in bulk, not jars. I then tried it twice in the ice chest, first starting with 125F water and the second time starting with 135F water, blanket-wrapping it both times. They all made good yogurt.

One batch, however, gave me another possibility. I heated the milk too much and it scalded (climbing up the sides of the pan). I went ahead anyway to see if that would make any difference. Then after it was done, I also forgot it was in the fridge draining, and left it overnight. Well! What I got was something that looked like cottage cheese, not yogurt. I was going to toss it, but then thought, wait, this also looks like room temp Boursin cheese. So I flavored it with garlic powder, crushed Italian seasoning, crushed basil, some dill and some pepper. Wow! Great on crackers or as a dip! So what does Boursin cheese cost? A lot by comparison to 4C milk.

What I forgot to add to the original post is that once you get a batch made, you can now use that as your starter instead of store bought yogurt. Some say you can only do 1-2 generations by re-using, others say you can get 4-5 generations, and some say you can just use your last batch forever because the bacteria reproduces itself. I haven't gone there yet except once, and I personally just like the tinge of flavor that the Dannon gives it, but I will try it again because it certainly worked.
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