Easy Yogurt Making

It's really easy to make excellent yogurt at home! This recipe can be scaled up or down, and makes delicious vanilla (or or plain) yogurt.

Ingredients

1/2 gallon milk (I really prefer 2% or whole milk, for a thicker yogurt.)
1 cup sugar (optional)
1 Tbsp vanilla extract (optional)
1 6-8 oz package plain store-bought yogurt (must read "contains active cultures")

You'll also need:

Canning jars or other containers
A thermometer
A heat source (for incubating the yogurt)

* Note:  If you just want to make plain yogurt, skip the sugar and vanilla extract, and just use the milk.  This is the only way I make yogurt now!  I prefer adding my flavorings in the form of whole fruit, granola, etc. 

Step 1 Heat the milk

Heat milk to 180 degrees, and add the sugar. Stir until it's completely dissolved. 

If you want plain yogurt, skip the sugar but still heat the milk.

Comments

[Umbagog]

A friend gave me some lactobacillus bulgaricus. I add milk and it makes yogurt. I didn't like the idea of losing all that vitamin-rich whey and so I began incorporating it into my bread dough instead of plain water. I began doing this several years ago and my bread tastes better, and it has a more agreeable texture. This is one the my brighter ideas.

[omgitzstegman]

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

I made some! I used the Trader Joe's plain french cream line yogurt to inoculate. Basically put one pot inside of another pot filled halfway with water and heated the (store bought) milk to 180 (candy/fryer thermometer) for a few minutes and stirred in a couple TBS of some brown and white sugar. Put that inner pot in a half sink of water which cooled it to 110F in a few minutes, stirred in my yogurt. Let that sit in the pilot lighted oven for 7hours at 102F.

The yogurt came out soooo good! My only problem is that I ironically got distracted by destructables for a few minutes and i think my milk scalded and a bit of skin formed on my milk and the edge of the pot. I think this caused some tiny lumps in my yogurt, either that or not stirring the inoculator in well enough.

Any idea how to prevent that next time? Otherwise my yogurt is (about to be WAS) sooo good! Thanks for your instructable!

[omgitzstegman]

I was definitely just gonna wing it on this one. Now all I need to do is pick my favorite yogurt to culture the milk. A couple questions tho.

Is it necessary to boil the milk, as a fresh jug should be pasteurized/homogenized already?

How important is sanitation when you're introducing a hardy and highly concentrated bacteria Lacto. acidophilus, into the mixture?

Thanks!

[morgano]

Well, you're right that milk from the store will be pasteurized already, so you could probably skip that step and just warm it up to incubation temps. I like to be as sanitary as possible, just to be safe. We often start with milk straight from the bulk tank of a dairy farmer, in which case it needs to be pasteurized. As far as the INCUBATION temp goes, I've found that our oven will stay right around 100 degrees with just the light on and the door closed, which is about perfect.

[twistedgreen]

I just bought a yogurt maker at a yard sale. I'm looking forward to using it on a regular basis for we eat youggy like mad!! I think it is funny that you need "yogurt" in order to make yogurt. Chicken or the egg?? lol I just joined as a 2 year member and yours is the 1st Instructable that I read that I can see all the wonderful pictures and steps involved. thank you for taking the time to share this with us!! Alanna TwistedGreen

[morgano]

Hey! Glad to hear that this is still helping people out. Thanks for the comment.

[nosugarforme]

Thanks for sharing your ideas. I boiled up the milk to just below boiling point, tested it after a while with my (cleanly washed) little finger. Once it was just above blood heat I added my bio yogurt starter and then covered the whole container in a towel and let it sit on the counter for about six hours. The result? lovely, creamy, thick yogurt that even my husband enjoyed this morning. The rest is in the fridge now, but I don't think it will be there for long!

[pyrotechnical]

i just made my 5th batch of yogurt from this recipe and i have brown sediment on the bottom of the jar, and a layer of yellow junk on top of the whey. It smells like yogurt but i'm a bit afraid to eat it. anyone know whats going on? is it the result of putting the vanilla extract in too early or letting my starter sit too long? 

[macrumpton]

I used to do something similar in college.
I took a 1.5 gallon stockpot 2/3 full of almost boiling hot water and I added 4 packages of dried milk to it. I let it cool down to 90°f and added one small container of Columbo plain yogurt and stirred it up well. Then I covered the pot and put it in the oven so the pilot light would keep it warm. 18 hours later you have a lot of cheap yogurt to put on your cereal. It was not as thick as store bought, but I mainly used it for cooking (pancakes and quiche) and on my granola instead of milk, so it was just fine.

[jolshefsky]

I'd call what I did a success.  It's pretty mild and milk-tasting, but definitely yogurt.  I stuck to the recommended temperatures and tried to keep things sterile ... I guess it worked.

That said, it's a lot of work to save a couple bucks and I think I'll stick to buying it.  I'm glad to know how it's done, though.  It's definitely something that would be easier to accomplish in the summer when I have access to warm places for long times without using power (i.e. not using the oven at 100 degrees for many hours).

Thanks!

[reelthing]

If you have a gas oven, the pilot light gives off enough heat to work perfectly. If not, I have a friend who wraps a towel around container and places it on her hot water heater. She says that works as well.

[bennyb1]

I used to do this with fresh goat milk, but used large size baby food jars. Put a piece of cloth(handkerchef cloth works well)over the lid and secure with a rubber band or tie in place. I'd put them on the window sill in the sun for a couple of days, and it made great yogurt. Add berries or whatever for flavor.

[shooby]

Pretty simple process. this is also pretty energy intensive however. I think I'd do this if I could rig up something solar powered for the incubation. Black painted cardboard box left outside in summer perhaps?

[bubblewrap74]

I had an idea that if one were to pair this with bread baking (on a baking stone) just turn the oven off afterward and the stone would keep it nice and toasty in there, but not too warm. Haven't tried it yet.

[shooby]

Good idea! Small innovations like that are awesome.

[shooby]

Or use a radiator in the winter. Unfortunately my new place doesn't have any.

[fritsie123]

It will even work when you don't actively heat it. Just leave it at room temperature for 24 hours (or a bit longer if you're adventurous) and the culture will grow. I've been making yogurt like this (very similar) for years, without buying new 'starter' in the store. Just keep things clean, and you can go on forever. Great instructable, the step-by-step pictures are very well choosen.

[PKM]

How long can you keep a starter between batches? I guess you wouldn't want to eat some of this that's been in the fridge for 2 months, but is the culture still in a state to start another batch? I ate a lot of home made yoghurt as a child (parents bought an old "incubator" in a charity shop, it paid for itself in a couple of months and kept on giving :) ) and it's much better than the bland oversweetened stuff in shops.

[fritsie123]

Obviously, you shouldn't let the yogurt go bad before starting a new batch. I've kept starters for about two weeks (in the fridge!) without adverse effects. If the starter is bad, you can probably smell it...

[Derin]

add lotsa water and shake to get ayran

[curious chris]

You should do your own instructable.

[Derin]

I will do it sometime when I run out of it.

[Homemade-Yogurt]

This is a nice approach, with good photos and descriptions. I maintain a homemade yogurt website your readers might find useful as well. It's more or less the same idea, but with different equipment (heating pad instead of a cooler, old yogurt containers instead of Mason jars, etc.). Please check it out and see what you think:

Homemade Yogurt Recipe

[osp001]

I have found that if you just turn on the electric light to the oven and keep the door closed, it ends up at about 110F. We make yogurt a gallon at a time like this, and we don't boil it- we just heat to 185F and allow it to cool back down. Normally we let it go 24 hours, but have let it gone 36 hours with no problems.

[shahabg]

the way I have always made yogurt was to heat a half gallon of milk in a big glass or ceramic bowl in the microwave for 25 min. then I felt the temp by sticking my finger into the hot milk trying to make sure the temp was close to my body temp. at which point I added the store bought yogurt and let it sit in front of the fridge or above a heating duct for 8 hours, and then I enjoyed. this method is a lot cheaper and faster.

[roadnate]

This really doesn't require much work, and it will produce more consistent results. Really all you have to do is monitor the heating of the milk in the beginning. Also, putting milk in a microwave for 25 minutes will send you back in time. I like to let mine incubate for 24 hours, it really does make a difference. I also don't add sugar, sweet yogurt is for wusses. This pays for itself in no time at all. I take turns with my wife making it every Sunday. 4 quarts a week.

[bytowneboy]

Twenty-five minutes seems a very long time.

[shooby]

Yeah definitely, what kind of microwave was this?

[nerdmom920]

Great recipe. I made a lot of yogurt last year, but fell out of practice. You've reinvigorated me!

[The Handmade Project]

Yay! I've always wanted to try...

[nerdologist]

I like the idea to reuse old canning jars. Great idea to incubate inside a cooler with a heating pad. I know that you mentioned using the oven, too. Perhaps you could do this after baking something and use the already generated heat, saving energy. Great instructable.

[meztek]

Yes, I always put a bowl of milk in the oven after cooking; It works perfectly. This is a great instructable.

[jakee117]

we did this last week in my intro to biotech class it turned out kinda chunky and sour...

[brd154]

I've made yogurt a few times, but never before using the "double-boiler" type method (jar in hot water). Before I always heated it up in a pot/pan. I was a little skeptical at first, but this batch of yogurt (using your method) turned out better than any previous batch. Thank-you very much ;)

[sheilarae]

I like your complete, concise, easy to understand directions and your photos are great! I'd love to have a demonstration of this whole process, but with your excellent instructions, I feel comfortable enough to try it by myself!