I Made Yogurt!

I made homemade yogurt in my crockpot today.  It was a fun and interesting experiment.  I shared it on facebook and received several fantastic comments and suggestions, so I thought I would share it here as well.


It all started with the 15 day diet.  As I was searching for some recipes I come across this site.


It is just filled with contributed recipes and tips from others.  The yogurt recipe was one that caught my eye, and since this diet recommends 2 servings of yogurt daily, I thought it might be fun to try my hand at making my own.


Here is the beginning of my yogurt experiment.  1/2 gallon of milk in the crock pot.  Set the control on low and leave it for 2 1/2 hours to heat through.

 

After the 2 and 1/2 hours have passed, simply turn off and unplug the crock pot and let it set for another 3 hours.

When the 3 hours are up, take out about 2 cups of the milk and mix it with about 6 ounces of plain yogurt, then return the mixture to the crock pot and stir to blend well.  Cover and wrap the crock pot in a heavy towel or blanket and  leave it  for 8 to 10 hours.

This is what I ended up with.  Pretty cool, don't you think?

Next I needed to decide how to flavor my yogurt.  This is where my facebook friends came through for me. 

•  just had some vanilla greek yogurt plain with honey and blueberries. Excellent think you could work with that.
  

  
  
• Love those cute little jars in the front!!!! I'd use strawberries and bananas... and probably a lot of sweetener... but that's me..
  

  
  
• peaches...yum
  

  
  
• Several years ago a dietitian said to flavor Joe's with sugar-free jello powder. Sprinkle on the jello and stir.
  

  
  
• Cheese cloth and a strainer turns it into the expensive greek style!
  

  
  
• The Simply Fruit, all fruit preserves. Unless you have homemade.

  Well, I have already tried the sugar free jello idea and it tasted great!  I might add that the consistency of this yogurt was somewhat like yoplait.  Next time I think I will turn the crock pot on low for awhile after adding the 6 onces of yogurt and see if it thickens up any more.  I also will get some cheesecloth and try straining it.   Oh, and the two commercial containers have my home made yogurt in them too, just in case you were wondering.  Just didn't have enough 6 ounce size containers, so decided to recycle.  Total cost of this yogurt was less than $3.00.

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  Blessings!

  Reny