Spring and summer are here! One of the things that means for us is more milk!
After the long winter months we crave the beautiful flavor of milk that comes from cows that have been feeding on fresh spring and summer grasses 🙂 We still get some raw milk in the winter, but our share offers a larger abundance in the spring and summer and we take full advantage!
We certainly can go through glass after glass of fresh milk, and we definitely make ice cream almost weekly in the summer, but one of the things I like to use our surplus for is yogurt making. It really is easier than you think and it can be batched up to last for weeks.
Why make our own yogurt instead of buying quality yogurt in the store?
- I do occasionally buy store bought! Nothing wrong with quality organic store bought, and in the winter this is what we do up!
- HOWEVER my youngest does NOT digest store bought yogurt well – It is a combo of it being pasteurized milk product and how they add those “gums” in there to thicken it up. I just don’t give her yogurt in the winter. She digests raw milk yogurt fantastic 😉
- We have an abundance of milk in the spring and summer!
- It is easy and cost effective!
Here’s how it works! Feel free to half the recipe if you don’t want to end up with as much as I make – we go through this within a few weeks. I like only having to make yogurt once a month 😉
- 1 gallon whole milk (Organic, grassfed, and raw preferable. Or non homogenized, low pasteurized.)
- 1 TB of store bought whole yogurt per cup of milk (For a gallon of milk this ends up being about 12ish TB as I fill up about 4 quarts)
- Pour the milk into a large stock pot and bring the heat up to medium/high.
- Using a candy thermometer, bring the heat of the milk up to 110 degrees if you want true “raw milk” yogurt, or 170 degrees if not. STIR OFTEN TO PREVENT STICKING. NOTE: if you are using pasteurized milk you MUST bring the heat of the milk up to 170.
- Once you hit your desired temp, turn the heat off and let the milk come back down to room temp.
- Pour the room temp milk into jars and stir in 1 TB of quality store bought whole yogurt per cup of milk (I use quart jars which hold 3 cups – so for every jar I use 3 TB of yogurt.)
- Cover the jars with paper towel or coffee filters to breathe and set under the warm light in your oven for 12 hours.
- After 12 hours, put lids on the jars and put them in the fridge to set – this will take about 6 hours before you want to attempt to eat it.
- True raw milk yogurt (heated to 110 degrees) turns out “runny” – some people like this texture and it is great for smoothies. I like to add gelatin
or natural pectin
to the mixture to thicken it up – works great! If you are using pasteurized milk your yogurt product will turn out thicker.
- This is a GREAT way to use up soured raw milk – or raw milk that isn’t quite as fresh. After about a week if our milk is still around I just tuck it away in the back of the fridge and save it to make yogurt. This is NOT recommended for pasturized milk – once it goes bad it is bad and you need to toss it. But raw milk has fabulous good bacterias and enzymes that keep it safe – it basically starts turn itself into yogurt/sour cream all by itself!
- Use your yogurt for homemade yogurt cups!
- Stir in homemade granola!
- Read THIS and THIS on the benefits of raw milk!
YOUR TURN!
Let me know how it turns out for you if you give it a shot!
This post was shared at Real Food Forager’s Fat Tuesday!
