Making (Greek) Yogurt

[CrunkLord420]

I feel like I'm getting scammed every time I pay $100 for a teaspoon of greek yogurt from my local pleb slop distribution center and making it seems straight forward enough. I see people recommending the Instant Pot™ and I'm tempted to buy one since they seem like they've proven themselves as decent kitchen appliances. I normally eat 0% MF greek yogurt so does that mean I should be using skim milk?

Any tips or recommendations?

 

[peachlover669]

You are getting scammed, no you cant do anything about it. Keep consuming goy.

 

[Regio Consiglio]

You should ask for the real Turkish yogurt instead

 

[Bloitzhole]

You don't need any fancy instapot.
Source: I made greek yogurt for years.

Depending on your local pricing, off brand no name plain yogurt in a big bucket may be cheaper or similarly expensive as starting from milk. If this is the case you can also save money because you don't need anything besides a bowl, cheesecloth and strainer if you start from plain yogurt.

Take cheesecloth or plain cotton shirt. Put it in a strainer and put strainer over a big bowl so it sits on top and has clearance under it. Put in yogurt. Put in fridge overnight. You'll have whey in the bottom and greek yogurt on top the next morning. The yogurt will be very thick and creamy so you may want to stir in some of the whey to get it to the exact consistency you desire.

If you feel you need to make yogurt itself from scratch, get any cheap af yogurt maker for a couple bucks. All they do is keep a particular lukewarm temperature, it is not something you need to buy a fancy brand for.
Take milk. Put in 1 big tablespoon of actual yogurt. Stir. Put in yogurt maker. Wait. You now have yogurt. Take yogurt and proceed with previous paragraph. You can use this yogurt to make more yogurt ofc.

I know nothing about skim milk or lesser fat yogurt so I can't help you there I'm afraid. If I'm gonna make or eat yogurt, I want it fat and creamy.

 

[Procopius]

0% yoghurt isn't yoghurt, it's a milk dessert with lots of starch to thicken it. I use full fat milk when I make yoghurt, so I don't know how well skimmed will work. I guess you just give it a try.

Lot's of tips on line to follow. I use an instant pot and it's never failed. Buy some decent live yoghurt for your first batch. After that everyone says to save some for a starter for your next batch. That never really worked for me as the yoghurt seemed to get less and less thick with each batch. I guess the culture really needs to be treated like a sourdough starter and fed regularly to stay active. What does work for me is freezing some of the strained whey into ice-cubes, then chucking a couple of them in as a starter. I guess you're putting the active bacilli into some sort of suspended animation in the deep freeze.

 

[Dialtone]

0% yoghurt isn't yoghurt, it's a milk dessert with lots of starch to thicken it. I use full fat milk when I make yoghurt, so I don't know how well skimmed will work. I guess you just give it a try.

Lot's of tips on line to follow. I use an instant pot and it's never failed. Buy some decent live yoghurt for your first batch. After that everyone says to save some for a starter for your next batch. That never really worked for me as the yoghurt seemed to get less and less thick with each batch. I guess the culture really needs to be treated like a sourdough starter and fed regularly to stay active. What does work for me is freezing some of the strained whey into ice-cubes, then chucking a couple of them in as a starter. I guess you're putting the active bacilli into some sort of suspended animation in the deep freeze.

who did Yog hurt?

 

[Bookwork]

First, you have to catch a Greek.

They're fast little bastards, too. Invented the Olympics, you know.

 

[The Mass Shooter Ron Soye]

Making yogurt is trivial, but it will be somewhat runny. Straining it is the part I never bothered to do because it seems like a hassle to set up.

The Instant Pot is great for a variety of reasons, such as cooking dried beans very fast. I use it to make 1/2 gallon or 1 gallon of yogurt at a time. You use a yogurt function that boils the milk, then let it cool back down, which can take a while. Stir in some yogurt and then use the other function that incubates it at around 115°F. I usually let it go for 12 hours. I transfer it to quart mason jars.

But if you want it "greek", you need to strain it. I'm being inspired by @Bloitzhole to finally try it. I'll look for a mesh strainer and large bowl that are the right size.

I did try putting pectin in the yogurt once, but it didn't do anything.

 

[Trump's Chosen]

First, you have to catch a Greek.

They're fast little bastards, too. Invented the Olympics, you know.

They're really sleepy and sluggish if you catch them at their work.

 

[q8D]

https://based.cooking I believe has a good recipe. I would also recommend, if purchasing an instapot go with a little larger than you'd expect to use. The 9 in 1 instapot is fantastic, since it doubles as an airfryer and has a fairly large pot so meal prepping is super straight forward, I picked mine up at a thrift so idk what brand new would cost.

 

[HamFan]

I'm kind of repeating others, but I make lots of yogurt (I started in 2020 when I couldn't find yogurt in stores), so I'll put in my 2 cents.

I use the instant pot. I love that thing and use it several times a week. Learn how to use it, and yogurt will just be a bonus function. Otherwise there are specific machines, or you can go old school and wrap a towel around a pot to incubate it. I don't know the details. That method makes me nervous.

I use my own yogurt as starter. I take a bit from the fresh batch and freeze it for the next. Never had a problem with that being my culture.

To make it Greek, strain it as others have described. Keep in mind that you don't have to strain the whole batch. I often just strain what I need for specific uses. Save the whey, it is delicious and has nutrients. It's very good as the liquid in breads. Yeast breads or quick breads like pancakes. I freeze what I can't immediately use.

 

[strawberry15]

I feel like I'm getting scammed every time I pay $100 for a teaspoon of greek yogurt from my local pleb slop distribution center and making it seems straight forward enough. I see people recommending the Instant Pot™ and I'm tempted to buy one since they seem like they've proven themselves as decent kitchen appliances. I normally eat 0% MF greek yogurt so does that mean I should be using skim milk?

Because my grandmother is ill, i am making turkish yogurt every week.
I recommend you to make your own yogurt in your house because it will have much more probiotic then any market one(because of how they are made, they are lacking it.)
1- Prefer the milk you know over any other. If you know a farm that you can trust where can sell you milk, choose that. If not, buy milk from market.
2- You need to ferment it. Normally if you have yogurt you can use a piece of it to ferment the milk to create more yogurt but the market products would not ferment the milk so you need to buy yogurt yeast. maybe you can add probiotic shots from activia but ehh.
3- put your milk into the stove and let it wait in low heat. we want the milk to be between 109 to 114 fahrenheit degrees (or 43 to 46 celsius). this is the heat that our yeast thrives in. if you put your pinky inside the milk and you are not in pain before the 10th second, you are usually between 109 to 114.
4- you do not put the dry yeast directly to the milk. first seperate a portion of the milk and heat it beforehand. let it cool down for 20 minutes then put the yeast in it. pre heat some jars and put the yeast milk mix into them but do not close the jars with the lid. use rugs, clothes etc to coer them then put them inside an oven pre heated between 109 and 114, get them out, put their lids and let them wait there for 2 to 3 hours, then put them inside a refrigirator. they will darken
5-any goat or cow milk will give you a more liquidified togurt instead of the usual thickker yougurt. if you use water buffalo milk, it will have a much thicker product in the end. if you want a thicker yogurth, just boil you milk beforehand, boil it a bit much so it will lose much of the water inside. then wait until you reach the designed levels of heat, put the milk yeast product in it.

People already give you an advice i am just here to say that you want it probiotic rich. also goat milk, horse milk, water buffalo milk etc will give you interesting tastes. try it. Maybe make some ayran. And cheesecake is greek, not yogurt. it is strictly turkish, you can follow its ancestery. you can make interesting things with yogurt, will give some recipes later. see ya!

 

[Cat tit bingo]

Why settle for expensive Greek yogurt when you can buy the highly superior American go-gurt. It's delicious, comes in a convenient tube making it certified radical and has spongebob on it.

 

[Schwarzwald]

In Ancient Greece, yogurt was made by fermenting crushed bees, finely ground by the feet of dancing orphans from conquered neighboring city states, goat's milk, poppy tears, virgin olive oil, and the urine of Oracles. Blessed by Apollo, they were stored in an ornamental jar favorable to the gods and left baking in the sun for days before it reached glorious maturity.

Nothing is stopping you from making your own truly authentic Greek yogurt.

 

[Bookwork]

if you use water buffalo milk

Why, I asked self, are genuine American beasts not supporting their local humans with healthful dairy products? Turned out to be an entire Kevin Costner film. See third sentence below.

Gonna kick yo ass and walk on it is why.

 

[strawberry15]

Why, I asked self, are genuine American beasts not supporting their local humans with healthful dairy products? Turned out to be an entire Kevin Costner film. See third sentence below.
View attachment 6479613
Gonna kick yo ass and walk on it is why.

Do people mil llama, now i ask myself.

 

[JamusActimus]

I remember checking the ingredients of the Greek yogurt I usually buy and finding out there's only one ingredient.

Was pretty funny.

 

[Smegward]

add some fresh milk to a yoghurt culture and keep it in the fridge for a while

 

[Glow Neighbor]

I recommend buying an actual yogurt strainer. Switching from cheesecloth to a yogurt strainer took me from making greek yogurt once a year or less to making it at least once a week.

 

[StrawberryDouche]

If you want Greek style yogurt, one gallon will yield about one half gallon after straining. Whole milk is around $3/gallon where I live, so economically speaking, you'd be paying three bucks for a half gallon of yogurt, and that's a great price. You can definitely use 2% if you'd like.

The longer you let it incubate, the tangier it will be. Most people like it around 12 hours. Those people are weak. Go for at least 16. Just buy one of those single serving yogurt cups to use as your starter. It will last a remarkably long time in the fridge. At least a month.

You will not regret an InstantPot. If you want to use it for stock making and other bigger batch things as well, get the 8 quart.