I tried another few recipes for homemade yogurt, including this one, and wasn’t particularly thrilled with the results. The best results I got, or rather the results that were the easiest and resulted in the best taste, came pretty simply; I’d heat a half-gallon of 2% milk to 180 degrees F, let it cool to 110 degrees, mix some of that milk with a cup or so of store-bought yogurt, mix that with the rest of the milk, then cover the pot, put it inside the oven with the light on overnight, and the next morning, wake up to some creamy yogurt. Pretty easy, and very repeatable. Easy enough that I can still recall the steps and ingredients, even though it’s been months since I last did it.
Lots of reasons I haven’t made any recently, but chief among them is the fact that I can buy a huge 64oz. tub of yogurt at Costco for less than four bucks. For that, it’s hardly worth the trouble. Sure, the milk at Costco is under $2 for a gallon, but my time is worth something too, because making this stuff does consume some time.
And time is the other consideration; I was, um, between jobs when I started this set of experiments, and had plenty of time on my hands. Now though I’m gainfully employed, and don’t have the luxury of putzing around like I once did. And I did do a fair amount of putzing with the yogurt business, and didn’t get around to posting much about it. Like with that first yogurt experiment that I posted about in February… That was a real bomb. The texture of that stuff was all wrong, and the flavor wasn’t anything to write home about. And I made a whole gallon of that crap. I ate a few helpings, but just couldn’t stomach it. I should’ve just thrown it out, but was hesitant to do that too. Yvonne ate some, but in the end (a couple weeks later) I threw it out. Nope.
I made a few more attempts before settling on the simple recipe above… The details escape me now. But yogurt making isn’t really very difficult. Making Greek yogurt is though, and I think that’s what I was kinda shooting for. Maybe next time I have some time being unemployed!