If you enjoy eating yogurt, please don't miss this post!
I will show you a few simple steps to make your own fresh and healthy yogurt at home, just like the way it has been done for thousands of years. Trust me, it takes very little time, and it always works. From now on, you will not buy yogurt from stores anymore, and you won't even need yogurt starter powder or yogurt maker.
Health Benefits
Yogurt is a very healthy food that contains probiotics (good bacteria such as S. thermophiles and L. bulgaricus) that help to promote a healthy gut bacterial flora, which enhances our ability to fight pathogens that enter our body. Like many other fermented foods such as Japanese Natto and Korean Kimchi, yogurt is one of the healthiest food that people have been consuming since thousands of years ago:
Yogurt contains calcium, vitamins B6 and B12, riboflavin, potassium, and magnesium.
It is great for protecting against osteoporosis because of high calcium concentration
Helps to alleviate symptoms of irritable bowel symptoms and aids digestion
Suitable for people who are lactose intolerant, since the lactose in the yogurt is largely consumed by the good bacteria
It is also important to know heat treated yogurt (for example yogurt wrapped raisins) have no active bacteria, and flavoured and sweetened store-bought yogurts are unhealthy.
Therefore, when choosing yogurt, always buy those with live culture:
“The difference between barbarians and a yogurt is that yogurt has real culture"
How to DIY old-fashioned yogurt
Tools that you will need:
Heat proof container with lid to store your yogurt. You can use a plastic food container, but I prefer using ceramics
Food thermometer
Microwave, or simply a stove and a pan to warm up the milk
A thermos container / thermos bag / a warm and dark place to let the yogurt culture multiply
Ingredients:
1. One small store bought plain yogurt. Be sure to look for those with live culture and contains more than one strain of bacteria. Just buy once and you will never have to buy it again.
2. 1 Litre UHT milk (UHT milk is already pasteurised, so you don't have to pasteurise the milk by yourself). You can also use fresh milk, but it means you need to first heat up the milk and cool it down..... it is a bit complicated and time consuming so I don't recommend it. For people who want to go zero waste, if you could get hold of milk in glass bottles, that's perfect, just remember you need to pasteurise the milk properly.
Preparation:
Disinfect your container and lid by steaming or boiling it for at least 15 minutes. This will kill all the unwanted pathogens (e.g. E. coli) that could spoil your yogurt.
Take your yogurt out from the fridge, keep it in room temperature for a while first.
Step 1: Pour in your milk and heat it up in the microwave: 700W 45 seconds, two times. Heating it up in two short times will prevent it from over heating.
Step 3: Stir and test that the temperature is about 45°C (113°F)
Step 4: Add in your room-temperature plain yogurt and stir.
Step 5: Put the container in a warm place away from sunlight and cold air. I use a thermos pot, but you can be creative - putting it in a thermos bag, wrap it in a towel and put it in the pantry, put it in the microwave/oven, put it in your crockpot, put it in your blanket while you read my blog......all you need is to keep it in warm temperature for about 6-8 hours depending on your weather.
Step 6: After 6 - 8 hours, it's time to enjoy your yogurt! Add fruits, oats, grains, anything that you desire, and enjoy! Do keep it in the fridge after 8 hours of fermentation.
How to make more yogurt again?
The live culture multiplies in a warm environment by consuming the lactose in the milk. The probiotics will keep living in the yogurt, so remember to save a small bowl to make your next batch of yogurt using the same method above.
If you keep the yogurt batch well, you really won't need to buy store bought yogurt again, think about how much plastic waste you will reduce?
To end this post, I'd like to show you a yogurt container that was manufactured in 1976. That's already 40 something years ago. Plastics really do not go away, they only break down into small pieces and pollute everywhere. Let's try to do things in an old-fashioned way, before any disposable plastic was ever created.
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