Making Homemade Yogurt: Easy Picture Tutorial

If someone tried to explain the shoe-tying process in spoken word only, you’d have an awfully hard time figuring it out.

But as long as a kind person shows you how to tie your shoes, and then you get some practice in, by the time you’re an adult, it’s brain-dead easy.

Such is homemade yogurt.

It sounds intimidating and scary, a real challenge, if you just talk about it with someone, or perhaps try to skim the easy homemade yogurt post. I had a couple friends in real life tell me so this year, that they were overwhelmed by my post and couldn’t imagine completing the task.

One of them also said that “If you show someone once and they can repeat it, it’s a task worth doing.”

That’s my hope for homemade yogurt, that after I show you once, you’ll be brave enough and feel confident enough in the method to accomplish yogurt all by yourself.

To prove how easy it is, I visited one of these friends who couldn’t get it online. We made yogurt together while our kiddos played, and she is now a regular yogurt maker extraordinaire.

She decided that making homemade yogurt is like baking bread – you don’t need that much time and it’s not that hard once you figure it out, you just have to time it right to get all the little parts into your day.

A few readers/fellow bloggers have let me know that it turned out easier than they thought, too:

“from DynoMom, who has 10 children: “I have had a horribly hectic month and still made yogurt, Katie has the hook ups to a stupid easy method!”

from Meg at Everyday Miracles: I’ll join the “OMG Katie’s yogurt method is AMAZING” chorus if you’d like. Your original instructions were what finally got me over the fear of trying it & once I did, I don’t know what took me so long. I’ve recommended it to a number of people since then, and I’d be happy to share with your readers how much I love it. :-)”

And you get paid quite handsomely for your time, too — about $35/hour. I save well over $1000 on the food budget every year just by making this ONE food from scratch. Here’s the math. What are we waiting for? Let’s make yogurt!

Basic Homemade Yogurt Instructions

1.      Heat to sterilize the milk.  (160-180 degrees F)

2.    Cool milk to proper incubation temperature.  (90-110 degrees F)

3.    Add starter yogurt. (2 Tbs. per quart)

4.    Incubate at warm temperature 4-24 hours.

It really is that simple. Now let’s look at what that comes out to be in reality…

Photo Tutorial of Making Homemade Yogurt

Supplies necessary:

·         ·      Glass jars (quart wide mouth canning jars or empty spaghetti sauce jars work great) – make sure they are clean and were completely dry before capping.

·         Whole Milk (skim milk will create thinner  yogurt, every time – click for more on what milk to use to make homemade yogurt)


·         Candy or meat thermometer, but I can show you how to do it without one too

·         Pot large enough to hold your glass jars

·         2 Tbs of plain yogurt per quart of milk (Buy the freshest yogurt possible at a store and make sure it has “live and active cultures”.  I have used Dannon, Stonyfield, and Fage. Your previous batch of homemade yogurt will work for the next time.)

·         picnic cooler

·         bath/beach towel

·         timer

Let's Begin!

1. Put a washcloth in the bottom of your pot to cushion the jars.

2. Fill jars with milk.

3. Place jars in pot; fill with tap water (I use hot because I’m impatient, but a wise reader pointed out that COLD water and cold milk reduces the chance of breaking jars).

4.) Lid the pot for faster cooking time.

5.) Turn the burner to high.

6.) Set a timer so you don't forget. My pot takes 10 minutes to get to 110F.

7.) Heat milk to 160-180F for pasteurized milk or raw milk you want to pasteurize (raw milk yogurt is tough to get smooth and creamy without heating the milk to at least 160F).

OR

For truly raw yogurt, heat to between 100-110F. If it gets higher than 118F, you’ve killed your enzymes and may as well go up to 160F. The photo above was pushing the limit, but still okay!

If you don’t have a thermometer, 160ish looks like this with a “skin” on top. The water in the pot will be boiling.

8. Remove jars from pot. I usually lid them and use an oven mitt so I don’t spill – they’re very hot!

Q: “Ack! One of my jars broke! What did I do wrong???”

A: Nothing. Sometimes jars just break, unfortunately. Low quality glass jars break more often than canning jars, but it just happens sometimes. 

9. Put a lid on the pot of boiling water and nestle it into a picnic cooler like this:

Close the lid of the cooler so it gets toasty for when you’re ready. (If making raw yogurt, bring the water TO a boil while you’re mixing yogurt into the jars, since it won’t have boiled yet.)

10. Allow milk to cool down to about 100-110F. (Skip this step if making raw yogurt. If your raw milk heats to above 110F, allow it to cool back to 100F.) I think the best yogurt is made at about 100 degrees.

You can let the milk cool in a number of ways:

- On the counter (will take 1.5-2 hours, depending on room temperature)

- In the fridge (but that will add heat to the fridge, compromising the food you have stored – I no longer recommend this, but it takes about 45 minutes)

·  Outside in the cold

·  If you’re in a real hurry, put the jars in an empty sink, then add cold water slowly to about halfway up the jars, then ice packs or ice. They’ll cool in 15-20 minutes (watch closely), but you risk jar breakage.

11. When the milk is at temp (feel on your wrist for “just warm, not hot” if you don’t have a thermometer), stir in 2 Tbs. plain yogurt (2.5-3 for raw yogurt). I just use 2 heaping scoops with a regular flatware Tablespoon. You can also get dehydrated yogurt starters at your local health foods store or Cultures for Health.

12.) Stir well.

13.) Place jars in the cooler next to the hot pot.

14.) Wrap the towel over the jars and tuck it between the jars and pot if you can - you don't want the hot pot getting the jars TOO hot, especially if you're making raw yogurt and the pot has just boiled.

15. Take the lid off the pot to let steam out (I just leave it in the cooler out of my way; yours may or may not fit.) If you had just boiling water, let some steam out for about 5 seconds; if it’s been in the cooler for a while, slam the cooler lid right down to trap all the heat.

16. Allow the cooler to sit and incubate your yogurt for you for 4-12 hours.

Could you incubate elsewhere? Sure! Anywhere you can keep the jars at about 100-110F, including your oven with the light on, perhaps resting in the pot of warm water, wrapped up in towels with a heating pad plugged in, in a hot car, or in an Excalibur dehydrator set to 100 or 110F. I like the cooler because then it’s not in my way if I need the oven and doesn’t use any energy like the dehydrator.

17. Take out the jars and put them in the refrigerator. Done!

Just pour the water out of the pot and flip it upside down to dry.

Notice: no dishes. How cool is that?

Be sure to save a half cup of this batch to be a starter for the next batch. I like to put some in a little container right away after the yogurt has cooled fully and set, so then I don’t have to worry about someone finishing the last jar and eating my starter! This practice also avoids contamination problems if someone dips into your serving jar with a dirty spoon…

24-Hour Yogurt

If you’re on the SCD Diet or similar, you may need to incubate your yogurt for 24 hours. After 8-12 hours, just boil a few cups of water and pour it, steaming hot, into the pot. That should add plenty of heat to keep at incubation temperature for the next 8-12 hours. Depending on your room temperature, you might need to add boiling water once or twice.

See it to Believe it

If you’re a very visual person and want to see the whole process on video rather than still photos, I do have a guest lecture in the Seeing in the GNOWFGLINS eCourse on Cultured Dairy and Cheesemaking.

Becoming a member in the eCourses really is invaluable – you spend a little money to save money in the long run. With access to everything all at once with any level of membership, you can sign up for a month, glean what you can, and wait a while before signing up again.

Just as many, many people were encouraged to make water kefir after seeing my 3-minutes-a-day water kefir how-to video, I know that when you see how easy homemade yogurt is, you’ll know you can handle it!

Even if you only take away a confidence with homemade yogurt, the $11-12 you’ll spend for one month’s membership will be offset quickly by the hundreds of dollars you’ll save making it, as long as you would usually buy at least ONE 32-ounce tub of yogurt per week. Just one.

Source: KitchenStewardship