Home Made Cow’s Milk Yogurt
This is a great recipe to try out. Its super easy and inexpensive. I like to customize it by adding in fresh fruit or candy after its been refrigerated. It’s not exactly apocalyptic but I figured some of you might like to give it a try.
Makes 1 quart
1/4 cup good quality commercial plain yogurt (or previous home-made batch)
1 quart pasteurized whole milk, non-homogenized
a candy thermometer, if you want to be precise
- Bring one quart of milk to the simmer stage (180 degrees) and remove from heat. Stir often to prevent scorching and sticking to the bottom of the pan.
- Cover and cool to about 110 degrees. It is very important that you allow the temperature to drop so as not to kill the bacterial culture you are now ready to introduce.
- Remove about one-half cup cooled milk and make a paste with one-quarter cup of good quality commercial yogurt. The commercial yogurt you use should be unflavored and unsweetened. You could use a starter but why spend the extra bucks? Commercial yogurt works fine. You can use your home-made yogurt as a starter for your next batch.
- Mix the paste with the remainder of the cooled milk and stir thoroughly.
- Pour milk into any appropriately sized shallow glass, enamel or stainless steel container (I use a Le Creuset pot), cover and let stand for at least 24 hours at 100-110 degrees up to a maximum of 29 hours. After 30 hours, it starts to kill the good bacteria. To keep the correct temperature for the culture, I use a 60 watt bulb in my oven and leave the light on. No other heat is needed. Remember, too high a temperature will kill the bacterial culture and will prevent proper “digestion” (conversion) of the lactose. Too low of a temperature will prevent the activation of bacterial enzymes and will result in incomplete “digestion” of the lactose.
- Remove from oven and refrigerate.
While this yogurt may not be as thick as commercial yogurt, it will be a true yogurt with no thickeners or extenders. Speaking of thickeners, sometimes I add some Straus cream to the milk in the beginning if I want a more viscous consistency. For a Greek-style yogurt, strain the whey with cheese cloth (as in the photo) or flour sack towels.
When you’re ready to eat your home-made yogurt, try to eat only one cup. I dare you! It’s so delicious, you’ll be wanting more. Try the fresh yogurt with sage honey drizzled on top or with fresh berries to make your mouth say wow.
FOR RAW MILK YOGURT: In step 1, only heat the milk to 110 degrees so as not to kill the good stuff which is why you buy raw milk in the first place. I like raw milk yogurt better than the pasteurized, both in flavor and texture.
housewives guide to the apocalypse 
Very good blog post. I always mention that one of the most important reasons for first aid is to preserve Life, not only the casualty\’s life, but your own as well. Far too often only one person\’s life
is in danger when the emergency services are called, but by the time they arrive there
are more. If you put your life in danger, you can end up fighting for your OWN life
instead of the casualty\’s.