The Greek yogurt experiment had mixed results. Let's examine them item by item...
Coagulation did not happen as scheduled. The recipe video indicated that one should expect nothing to appear to happen for the first 3 to 3½ hours and then a miracle would occur and there would be yogurt. Scientifically, this makes a lot of sense. The yogurt happens when the bacteria you are incubating reaches a certain concentration.
- First "uh-oh": my "miracle" didn't happen until 5½ hours had passed.
Greek yogurt is supposed to be very smooth and thick. The thickness comes from straining out the whey so I wasn't too worried initially that I had a lot of goop floating in a yellowish soup.
- Second "uh-oh": My curd seemed kind of grainy, more like ricotta cheese than the lump of soap I was promised in the video.
You are supposed to strain the yogurt for several hours.
- Third "uh-oh": Mine was done giving up the whey in only a couple of hours. Can this be good?!
The yogurt was supposed to be smooth, silky, and delicious.
- Fourth "uh-oh": My yogurt was grainy and didn't taste like the yogurt I used for a starter.
I nearly tossed it out in Thursday night's trash but then I had a minor epiphany: what if I jammed the stick blender into the yogurt and held the trigger until it cried uncle?
And so, that is what I did.
Friday evening, I processed the daylights out of the yogurt. Seriously, I buzzed the blender until my ears rang like I'd closed down the bar after a heavy metal concert.
And the results were good! The final product is thick and smooth and creamy. The taste also improved over the intervening two days. Neatnik liked it. I enjoyed it with a spoon of honey. Number Guy, who does not like yogurt, even tried some with honey on toast and liked it.
I'm glad I gave this a try, but at this point, I think that it was way too much work for too meager a return. I was chained to the house for the entire afternoon. I did manage to grade some papers and do a little bit of class prep between culture checks but, dudes... this was a major time suck.
Now I know how the commercial concerns can get away with charging twice the price for the Greek yogurt: it's worth the money not to have to babysit the bacteria. Besides that, they have all of the cool stainless steel vats and heating and cooling mechanisms and don't have to worry that the temperature in the crock pot is going to skyrocket during a two-minute bathroom break.
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8 yarns:
I wonder if your omission of the heavy cream contributed to the texture problem. The fat in the cream might be what makes the results creamy. Cream=creamy? Could be. Glad you managed to salvage it though. It would have been a shame to toss out all that. Thanks for being the guinea pig. I think I'll stick with the 4/$4 at Walmart.
It's worth buying a yogurt maker to make your own. Whatever you're using, once it's in its incubator you must cover it and do not stir or disturb. I also pick up yogurt starter at the health food store and find it gives a much better product than commercial yogurts which have additives. The longer you leave the yogurt in the strainer the thicker it will become - more whey does come out. There is a very cool product called The Wave for straining yogurt - can go in the dishwasher. Available on Amazon.
2nd the wave strainer. I used to use a coffee filter and strainer but after it got knocked over in the fridge I thought the wave was worth the cost. I have an older model yogurt maker that was picked up a thrift store. Instead of all the little cups I use a bread pan that hold 4 cups milk + .25 c of starter yogurt (usually left over from a previous batch). I also add a fair amount of powdered milk to the milk (I have done 2% and whole)and starter so it is pretty thick at the end. I generally mix mine up after dinner then incubate all night then put in the fridge in the morning at about the 12 hr mark. I only strain the yogurt when I have eaten 3/4 of the batch and all the whey is coming out anyway.
Go check out NowNormaKnits blog. She's had awesome success with making yogert...and she doesn't babysit it.
Her stories make ME want to try making some!!
http://nownormaknits2.typepad.com/
Sounds delicious despite all the effort!
Excellent attempt. I too wonder if cream might be the key. Either way I'm glad you were able to eat what you made.
I found using a yogurt maker actually gave better results, but I have no idea why that should be the case. If nothing else, there is little in the way of babysitting. I also learned that the milk I used made a huge difference. The new ultra pasteurized milks work (and you don't have to heat them prior to making yogurt) but the non-uht tends to make a creamier yogurt. I've had a few failures, though. OK...more than a few!
Aren't you glad that I suddenly felt the need to go all yogurt-guru on you?
LOL You sound like me. We spent all weekend making homemade ravioli. While it was good, we don't know that it was good enough to spend all weekend doing it. ; )
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