Homemade yogurt

We eat a lot of yogurt in our home, and make it ourselves to save costs. You can buy cultures such as Yogourmet in most health food stores, but that’s only slightly cheaper than buying yogurt. Wholesale cultures costs about 1¢/litre, making the yogurt the same cost as milk (around a third to a half the price ).

Bulk yogurt culture

We buy yogurt culture online from Glengarry Cheesemaking in Ontario. Glengarry sells the culture in packages of 60 grams, and they say to use 1/16 tsp per 2 liters of milk (traditionally called a pinch). If the yogurt is too thin for your taste, use more culture or ferment longer; if too thick, use less culture or ferment for less time. If it doesn’t work at all, you probably added the yogurt culture when the milk was too hot. This works best using UHT (ultra high temperature) pasturised milk, sometimes labelled as “stays fresh longer” on the carton (often this is the cheaper brands), so experiment with different types of milk from your local store to find the ones that work for you. The percentage of fat in the milk doesn’t affect the fermentation; you can even replace some or all of the regular milk with canned condensed milk.

The culture loses effectiveness after about a year in the freezer, but you can increase the amount to compensate. It’s also possible to strain the yogurt through cheesecloth to make it thicker.

Method 1: Stovetop

You’ll need a thermometer capable of reading temperatures from 40°C to 85°C, and a large thermos able to contain the jar you want to make yogurt in with lots of volume left over.

1. Heat 2L milk to at least 85°C.
2. Allow to cool to between 40°C and 45°C.
3. Pour into glass jar and stir in 1/16 tsp of yogurt culture.
4. Place glass jar into a large thermos filled with water at 45°C.
5. Let sit at least 4-7 hours (without moving or shaking the container).

Making yogurt on the stove

Method 2: Electric Pressure Cooker

After years of making yogurt on the stove, we bought an Instant Pot model with a yogurt setting. No thermometer or thermos is needed with this method. You won’t bring the milk to pressure so it’s a little simpler to use a standard pot lid; Instant Pot sells a glass lid, but the standard lid or anything else that fits is fine.

1. Pour 2L milk directly into the pot.
2. Press the “yogurt” button, press the “adjust” button to set to “more” (display will show “boil” instead of a time), and put on the lid.
3. When the Instant Pot beeps to let you know the milk is at 85°C, take the inner pot out and let it cool to below 40°C, for example in a sink filled with cold water.
4. Stir 1/16 tsp of yogurt culture, and put the pot back into the cooker. (Remove the milk skin on top first if desired.)
5. Press the “yogurt” button again, set to “normal”, then set the time to 8:00 or more. (Do not use “less”; this is a lower temperature setting.)
6. Let sit at least 4-7 hours (without moving or shaking the pot), or longer.
7. Transfer to jars and refrigerate.

Instructions from Glengarry Cheesemaking

For even more precise instructions or for larger batches, consult the instructions provided by Glengarry.