I currently pay $7.75 per gallon. That seems ridiculous compared to the price of regular milk and even a bit high compared to organic milk, but compared to states where you CAN legally purchase raw milk, it's cheap. In Phoenix, the cost for a gallon of raw milk at the store is $12! Thank God I don't have to buy 3 gallons of that milk 3 times a month!
I'll do a break down of the cost of making yogurt after the tutorial, but for now, let's get started! If I'm going to give my family raw milk, why wouldn't I want to give them raw dairy products? We drink raw milk, eat raw butter, and enjoy raw yogurt. I hope to be able to splurge a bit in the future to enable me to make raw cheeses!
Raw Yogurt!
You'll Need:
2- Clean Quart-sized Mason Jars with clean lids and bands
4 Tbl Organic Whole milk yogurt (Or a yogurt starter culture)
2 Quarts of raw milk (You can do this with pasteurized milk too)
1 Empty Ice Chest
Optional:
1 Thermometer that goes as low as 100 degrees and as high as 180 degrees
2 large pots
I do this as simple as I possibly can, but if you're using pasteurized milk or you want to be exact, you'll need to take extra precautions, which I'll cover in a separate font so that you'll know what is what. If there is only purple font, it is for both pasteurized milk and for those who want to be exact. If there is purple and green then the purple is for pasteurized and the green is for those who want to be exact.
I do not sterilize my equipment because I know it's clean and I know the quality of milk I receive.
In order to sterilize your equipment bring a large pot of water to a boil and boil your jars, lids, bands, thermometer, and any stirring utensils for about 5 minutes. Remove them carefully and put them on a clean towel or a paper towel until they are ready to be used.
Next I fill each jar to the neck with milk and stir the yogurt starter in. I then let my jars sit on the counter for an hour or so until they are room temperature.
You need to re-pasteurize your milk. You can create a water jacket by putting a pot with your milk in it into a pot of water. You will then bring the water to a boil and heat the milk until it is 185 degrees. Hold it at that temperature for several minutes or up to 30 minutes. By heating your yogurt for 30 minutes you will get a very thick yogurt. You then need to allow your milk to cool down to 110 degrees before pouring it into your jars. Anything over 110 degrees will kill your yogurt culture and you'll end up with soured milk. Once cooled, fill jars up to the neck with milk and stir it up.
You can put your milk into a pot and heat it to 110 degrees. After 110 degrees enzymes will begin to die. Enzymes are the beauty of raw milk, so we want to keep them! Once your milk is 110 degrees you can fill your jars up to the neck with milk and stir it up.
Put your lids on and put your jars into a cooler.
I just fill my cooler with the hottest tap water from my kitchen sink. This is something that I have practiced. You can always check the temperature of your tap water before doing this. If your water is too hot, you'll kill the yogurt culture. If it is too cold, your yogurt won't turn into yogurt. My tap water is slightly above 110 degrees so by the time it hits my cooler it is 110 degrees exactly (I know, I'm lucky). Your water should not go above the neck of the jar.
Next fill a pot with water and heat it to 110 degrees. Be VERY careful not to make it any hotter or you'll kill your culture (I've done it!) Once your water is 110 degrees pour it into your cooler.
Your water should not go above the neck of the jar.
Put the lid on your cooler and cover/ wrap your cooler with a towel for added insulation. Let sit for 12 hours. Once the 12 hours is up you can put your yogurt in the fridge to firm up. The time doesn't need to be exact. You can let yogurt do it's thing from 8-24 hours. I like 12 hours best, but you don't need to stress about it.
Once you've got some time to stay home you're ready to drain your yogurt. you don't have to drain it, but draining the whey (the sour part) will make your yogurt thicker and less tart. I'm not sure if it is really needed for pasteurized yogurt, but I think it might be. If you make pasteurized yogurt and your yogurt is too tart, try draining it!
Stick a colander inside of a bowl and put a piece of cheese cloth or Birdseye fabric inside the colander. Then dump your yogurt into the fabric.
Tie your fabric into a knot and hang it from a cabinet over the bowl for a few hours. I have 2 fabrics that I use. One for each quart. The longer you hang your yogurt the thicker it will get. If you leave it for a whole day, you'll get yogurt cheese/ farmer's cheese. It's kind of like cream cheese.
While my yogurt is hanging, I will go scrape the bottom up every so often. the yogurt closest to the fabric will drain, but if you don't scrape it up, the whey in the middle will remain. You'll notice in the above picture that the liquid looks white. Normally it would be a clear yellow color, but I made a slight boo boo this time around and not all of the milk turned into yogurt. Therefore, it is white because there is milk in it. Oops!
I've found that 3-4 hours is good for a consistency that my family likes. My husband is fond of Yoplait yogurt, so that about the consistency I go for.
By the end of my draining I end up with 1 quart of yogurt and 1 quart of whey. I freeze my whey in ice trays and use it for recipes, lacto-fermenting, and soaking flour/grains.
I sometimes add about 1/4 cup of honey per quart of yogurt. That gives it enough sweetness for my picky husband. Another thing that we like is to make fruit bottom yogurt cups. They are convenient snacks for my daughter and easy fro my husband to pack in his lunch. Not to mention that they are great quick snacks when I'm craving something slightly sweet.
To make yogurt cups we use the 4 oz jelly jars. You could also use the 8 oz wide mouth jelly jars. We put 1 spoonful of homemade jam (made with honey), or 2 spoonfuls of homemade applesauce (no sugar added) and then fill the jar the rest of the way with yogurt (sweetened or not). Put a lid on it and stick it in the fridge until ready to eat! I'm not sure if these will last long with pasteurized milk, so I would recommend only making as many as your family will eat within a few days. Ours will keep for a while, but they rarely hang around longer than a week because we like yogurt.
I have thought about trying yogurt culture packets. There are some types that are supposed to make thicker and sweeter yogurts, but at this time I don't really have the disposable income, so this is what we do for now.
Last, and most importantly, don't forget to save enough yogurt for your next batch! You can freeze it for a couple months if you don't plan to make yogurt again for a little while.
Oops! I forgot to add my cost breakdown. Yours will most likely be different unless you pay the same amount for milk as I do.
1 gallon of raw milk - $7.75
Divided by 2- $3.88
Therefore, I pay $3.88 per quart of yogurt. Remember that after draining we get about half yogurt and half whey. It is slightly more that purchasing organic whole milk yogurt at the store, but it is raw and there are no stabilizers, which is worth the extra dollar to me!
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