Making your own yogurt, yogurt cheese and cheese

[aimeebee]

I've found the crockpot method works best for our family in terms of yogurt. I rather like the start and forget method.

I've experimented with cheeses and do make my own ricotta and cottage cheese. It's simple actually, and I use dry non-fat milk for the base so it's pennies a batch. The short version is to heat the reconstituted milk then add some white vinegar to make it curdle, finally using cheese cloth or muslin to squeeze out all the leftover liquid. That creates ricotta. To make cottage cheese, add some additional reconstituted milk to the ricotta, which makes it creamy.

I'd love some other cheese recipes - particularly ones that use easy to find ingredients, like the ones I mention above.

In peace,

Annye

I have two cheese recipes that I want to try, so far. The first was on Martha Stewart months ago. She didn't call it ricotta, but if it isn't that, it is very similar to it. The other recipe makes a yellow soft cheese and it uses apple cider vinegar. I think the only other ingredients are milk and salt. I will find the recipe links for you later this evening. I am heading to the grocery in a minute.

I am really not a huge yogurt eater. But, I found some interesting links for yogurt cheese and combining it with foods to cut calories in half. Also, I found a couple of sites that advocated making yogurt cheese, then yogurt and then cheese. Basically, learning all the processes in that order is easier, according to some sites I read. My yogurt didn't set up well. It is really runny. I have heard this happens a lot on your first try. I don't think I let the milk cool enough before adding the starter and incubating. Live and learn, I guess.

[aimeebee]

I use whole non instant powdered milk, reconstitute it in a blender and for a starter I use some store bought yogurt or yogurt from the previous batch. Just warm the milk before adding the starter and test on your wrist like you would test milk from a baby bottle for temperature, dump the milk and starter it into a large picnic thermos and let it sit overnight or until it sets up. Simple!

Do you use powdered milk alone or add it to regular milk? I have seen recipes for both. Adding powdered milk to your milk is supposed to make a very thick Greek yogurt. I have seen simple recipes, complicated recipes and everything in between. It seems like there are a LOT of ways to make yogurt.

[cbms]

Interesting. I did a quick googling and I guees you could add some powdered starters to do this, also. They were really expensive, though like $50 for the bottle. Kinda puts a damper on the savings. LOL. But, basically it would make the yogurt healthier, giving it more live active cultures? I used a starter with live, active cultures. But, I wonder if using, say acidipholus milk or yogurt with different cultures ike Activia or something as a starter would improve the probiotics. Something to look into. Thanks, meems.

It wouldn't do any good to use acidophiles milk since it gets heated to almost a boil and the cultures would be killed in that process.

The point of incubating is that the cultures reproduce when in those temperatures which makes the yogurt thicken. When cold, they stop reproducing but are still alive. When they get up to body temp in our guts, they begin to reproduce again.

[leqet]

I make my yogurt all the time in the crockpot. I use a greek yogurt cup as a starter and it turns out thicker. I also like to do whole milk. If you use skim or 2% it will be very thin. You can make it into greek yogurt by using a fine mesh strainer or a collander lined with coffee filters. When you strain it save the whey (liquid). There's a lot of good nutrition in the whey and it will keep in the fridge for weeks without going bad. Add a couple tablespoons of whey to the water when you soak dry beans or grains and it makes the beans cook faster and easier to digest. I have made yogurt cheese twice but I have to be honest I didn't care for it. It's sort of like a sour cream cheese. It was just too sour for my tastes even when I added things to it or tried putting it in recipes.

Here's the crockpot method I use for making yogurt: A Year of Slow Cooking: You Can Make Yogurt in Your CrockPot!

[frogmama]

I have made my own yogurt many times now - a dozen or so? I started with the crockpot method mentioned on a popular crockpot website. It was too hard to time the heating/cooling process (before you add the starter) so I have switched to heating 2% milk (yogues easier with more fat) on the stove w/ a candy thermomiter to 180*-185*, then cooling to 110* and adding a few tablespoons of Fage, Stoneyfield, or YoBaby yogurt. Those work the best for me. I have also tried Activia, though it wasn't as good.

Once the milk has cooled, I pour it into my warmed crockpot to incubate. I add the starter, check the temp once more and unplug the crock and then wrap the whole thing in 3 inches of towels and let it go.

I find I like the yogurt better when the milk is fairly warm. I think it "yogues" quicker so it dosen't sour. Last batch I did this with (with Fage) incubated for about 5 hours.

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I strain my yogurt in a coffee filter and skim against the filter in the strainer with a spatula to scrape the thickened yogurt off and into a covered bowl. It goes quicker for me. I ususally have more than one bowl straing, and just cover the whole operation on my counter with a clean dishtowel. So far, my experience is that it strains best on my big plastic colander (more straining surface area?) instead of my mesh smaller one (both lined w/ coffee filters). I have thought about drilling holes in the bottom of an icecream bucket and lining it with a filter and stacking it loosely on a another ice cream bucket. I think that might work best. but havent tried it yet.

Use your whey! It is good for you!!! I like it best in my blueberry muffin recipe. You can also use it in pancake mix instead of liquid. Plants like it too, though I've just started trying that myself. Last batch I tried making Ricotta from it (you can make Ricotta from cheese whey) but it wasn't really worth my time - I got about 3 oz from 6 c. of whey and about an hour of my time. But it was fun to play with :)

Just today, I made the yogurt pancakes with blueberry-yogurt topping and man they were good! The pancakes tasted "normal". The topping was sweet and a bit "mysterious" with the added cinnamon in it - YUM! The recipe was on Stoneyfield's website several months ago. --I just glanced and didn't see it, but there is a bunch of great info at Cooking with yogurt .

Anyway, remember you can freeze your starter. If you bought a 4-pack of YoBaby Vanilla, and use about 1/2 a container per batch (plus, you really could use a few tablespoons from your previous batch to make a new one before starting over with a storebought starter), you are getting 8 or more batches from one 4 pack. That's not too bad. I think my current container of Fage is going to make about 3 batches. ...a worthwhile investment.

Oh, and I don't mix in powdered milk or jello or anything. I add some powdered sugar right before eating it - about 1/2 teaspon for 6 oz. and put frozen blueberries and strawberries on it. My daughter and I also like it with crumpled graham crackers or NV Oats and Honey crunchy granola bar pieces crumpled on top.

And since the homemade stuff is FRESH, it keeps practically forever. I gave it to a friend after she had a stomach bug - she was a little skeptical at first so she didn't eat it right away, but it was probably over 2 weeks old before she ate it and she loved it. I've easily used it closer to the 12-14 day mark with no loss of flavor, going bad, etc.

One last thing I do - I strain some overnight and make a little batch of yogurt-cream cheese. I mix in some taco seasoning and have a great dip. :)

So I saw this on the Facebook page's feed on my wall. Unfortunately I don't come on HCW too often, hence all this information at once. I really feel for the person with UC. I have Crohn's disease and have faced that point many times where they want to put me on immune-supressing drugs, etc. but I just can't do it. I'm pretty passionate about my homemade yogurt! I really have fewer symptoms when I've been keeping up with making it. I will try to come back to check this thread if anyone has more questions - at this point, I'm pretty confident with it and suggest you make some!!

[frogmama]

StonyField:recipes:Yogurt Blender Pancakes with Blueberry Topping here is the pancake recipe. I'll have to try making some of the others!