How To Make Yogurt at Home

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Full recipe

The benefits of fermented milk products are not spoken about, except on Mars. They are recommended to everyone: children and old people, who want to lose weight and want to gain weight, athletes, pregnant women, people with gastrointestinal tract problems and in general – to anyone and everyone. It is all for a reason. Natural yogurt contains a large number of probiotic bacteria, which help to improve digestion, strengthen immunity and regulate metabolism.

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In general, yogurt is a kind of panacea, and it will be most useful after home cooking, because this is the only way you regulate all the cooking processes. There are two ways to make yogurt at home.

The first one is a fermentation yogurt from store. I don’t like this method very much for several reasons. Buying natural yoghurt from the store, you don’t know if the sanitary norms were observed at the production site, if it was stored and transported correctly. Also, as a rule, thickeners and stabilizers are added to the store variant, otherwise the yogurt will not be quite homogeneous, with the release of whey, and this can scare away the potential buyer. And the last reason is the low content of probiotic bacteria, if you compare the store variant and the yogurt at home, made on starters.

Actually, the second option is to cook yogurt with bacterial ferment. At the moment it is not difficult to buy yogurt in the CIS, USA or Europe. They are sold in pharmacies, as well as in all major retail chains or online stores. The range of brands is quite wide, but I chose VIVO.

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They have a large selection of yogurt flavors to prepare classic yogurt and its subspecies, characterized by sourness or sweetness: Yogurt, Probio Yogurt, Bifikid, Immuno Yogurt, etc. In addition, they have starters for kefir, sour cream and other products. Later, I will write recipes for them as well.

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Homemade yogurt is prepared in several ways: in a pot or jar, in a multicooker, using a yogurt maker. I have tried all the options except the multicooker, and the result is the same – delicious homemade yogurt. Let’s go through each of the methods in detail.

Cooking yogurt without yogurt maker. For this we will need milk, starters and dishes in which we can heat the milk and leave it for the necessary time. I take a pot with a thick bottom and sides.

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All dishes and spoons are covered with boiling water, because we need to prevent malicious bacteria from entering the future product. Otherwise, the homemade yogurt may not work.

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Milk can be taken any: animal or vegetable; raw, pasteurized or ultra-pasteurized. Raw milk must be boiled to get rid of foreign bacteria and spores. Pasteurized milk may not be boiled, but it is better to do this procedure to be sure. Instead of boiling, you can heat the milk to 90°, for 5 minutes. I prefer ultra-pasteurized milk, because it is stored in a closed container for a longer time and it has always produced an excellent homemade yogurt.

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Milk can be taken from one to three liters. It will not affect the quality of yogurt, the main thing is that you have enough strength and ability to eat it. For cooking in a pot I use 2 packets of milk. We pour all the milk into the pot and put it on the fire.

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Raw and pasteurized milk is first brought to a boil, then cooled to 40°.

To understand the temperature of 40° without a thermometer, you can drop a little milk on your hand. Milk should be a little warmer than the body temperature. If you feel a lot of warmth or coolness, it is better to continue the cooling/heating process. In hot milk, the beneficial bacteria that squash yogurt will die. In cold milk – just will not work.

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In the prepared milk must be introduced starter. To do this, take a bottle or sachet, and pour into a pot. Then it is necessary to mix the milk well.

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To make the yeast better stirred, first add the milk to the bottle and shake it. In the case of a sachet, you can mix the starter with the milk in a clean glass or a small glass. After stirring, add the milk with starter to the pot.

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Now you should close the pot and leave it in a warm place for 6-8 hours. In order to prevent cooling, wrap the container in a towel or blanket.

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In winter, you can leave the yogurt next to the battery. After the proper time, we will get the desired homemade yogurt. It is thick, but it still needs to cool down. To do this, we put it in the fridge for a few hours.

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Chilled yogurt can be eaten as a separate dish, or can be used to prepare other dishes.

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Cooking yogurt in the yogurt maker. This option requires minimal labor, because the device independently maintains the necessary milk temperature. All we need to do is to prepare the milk, just like in the version with the pot. Raw and pasteurized boiled milk, we cook it immediately on ultra-pasteurized.

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We mix the starter in prepared milk and leave it in the yogurt maker.

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If you have a can option, pour the milk into all the jars and leave them in the yogurt maker for 6-8 hours. I have a yoghurt machine that allows you to cook directly in a bag or milk bottle, so I put the ferment inside the container and mix it.

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Then I put the bottle in the yogurt maker and add the water to the mark. The appliance heats the water, which in turn maintains the temperature needed to prepare the yogurt.

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My yogurt maker from the manufacturer of starters VIVO, called VIVO Yogobox. It allows you to work in two temperature modes – yogurt and kefir.

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After 6-8 hours, we leave the yogurt in the fridge to cool it down. As you can see, the recipe for homemade yogurt is quite simple, the main thing is to buy quality milk and good starter. The time for cooking is kept to a minimum.

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The yogurt at home is completely natural: without thickeners, flavors and sugar. And the main thing is that it is really alive. If desired, it can be reequipped. For this purpose, use 2 spoons of ready homemade yogurt instead of a portion of starter. All other actions are similar to this recipe.

Bon appetit! Don’t starve 😋