HM Yoghurt - What went wrong?

Magentasue

I've made yogurt most ways. I do have the Lakeland one and it is very good. Used to use a crock pot in the airing cupboard but no airing cupboard now!

Penelope_Penguin

Try this thread - runny yogurt.

Penny. x

EmptyPurse

Right, here's what I did: switched yoghurt maker on, heated milk (1 1/2 pts) to boiling point in saucepan, allowed it to cool to blood-warm temperature (i.e. could put my little finger in without burning it), put 2 tsp natural yoghurt into the yoghurt maker, added milk to yoghurt starter, put lid on and left for 8 hours. Both the milk & the starter yoghurt were a couple of days old but still fresh. Does that give anyone any clues?

dancingfairy

natural yoghurt? I thought you were meant to use live yoghurt? I thought these were different things?

Trow

2 teaspoons of yogurt? I would have used more than that. At least half a small tub.

champys

Yes, I would second that. My OH normally makes the yoghurt in an ancient thing called a 'Yogurtera' which belonged to his late mother. All he does is put in a 2 good tablespoons (half a small tub seems right to me) of any plain yoghurt, adds room temperature UHT milk (it takes a little less than a litre), switches the thing on then forgets about it. It normally sits there overnight, but is often remembered much later than that - a day and a half or 2 days no exception - and it seems that the longer it is left, the thicker the yoghurt gets. It is not treated with much science or accuracy in our household, because we never had any instructions with the yoghurt maker, but it always becomes yoghurt somehow and we eat it all the time.

shezza

I don't have a Lakeland yoghurt maker, but I do have an Easiyo system. I have found that only full fat milk gives a thick yoghurt, both semi skimmed and skimmed gives a thin yoghurt like drinking yoghurt.

What I do is place 3tbsp milk powder into the pot, I add 500ml of whole UHT milk at room temperature and dissolve the milk powder, then I add 3tbsp live natural yoghurt and mix well, then I add more milk to the 1000ml mark. I put the lid on the pot then invert a couple of times, then place it in the Easiyo cylinder and leave over night, the result is nice lovely thick yoghurt. All I do after this is keep a small amount back to start the next batch.

I hope this helps.

Penelope_Penguin

My thoughts:

• I use UHT milk, from cold. I've tried scalding fresh milk and not had any luck
• I always use full fat milk - little success with skimmed
• Are you sure that your yogurt is "live"? I've had success with full fat and skimmed

HTH, Penny. x

Penelope_Penguin

Hawthorn wrote: »

You guys obviously make yoghurt nowadays.....do you do it oldstylee, or do you have a proper 'yoghurt maker'? It's years since I did it, and it didn't last long.

Hi, Hawthorn - try these:

Yogurt without a yogurt maker

Easiyo yogurt maker

I've had 2 yogurt makers from Freecycle. I now use an Easiyo (on offer in Lakeland atm) but just with UHT milk and live plain yogurt, not the Easiyo sachets. Do ask on one of those threads if you have more questions

Penny. x

EmptyPurse

Thanks for the replies; there's some good suggestions about where I might have gone wrong.

I must admit that 2tsp of natural yoghurt seemed very inadequate to me but that's what the instructions said.....so I followed them! I think I shall try a different brand as a starter and use 2 tablespoons next time - perhaps the instructions were misprinted? If that doesn't work I'll try using cold milk instead of scalded.

Incidentally, has anyone tried using unpasturised milk to make yoghurt? I sometimes buy it at the farmer's market and it's much creamier than normal milk; I wonder if it would make a better yoghurt?