Making your own food is a great way to know what exactly is in the food and know if it’s healthy or not. One such food that a lot of people enjoy and can make at home, even if they are not experienced, is yogurt. The problem you may start to encounter is not knowing how to make your own yogurt. If you’re one of those people, don’t worry as this article will walk you through how you can make it at home by using a yogurt maker.
The first thing you need to know is that most yogurt makers will not heat the milk for you. While some models will heat up the milk, it is not as common as what you would think. To this end, you may need to heat the milk up from a separate source, which can include anything from the microwave to heating the milk on the stove. For the makers that do heat the milk, you will need to follow the directions on how this feature works.
Put milk in the maker and heat it up to the proper temperature. Then the machine will monitor the temperature of the milk and alert when you need to add in your starter. This in turn will be the time that you need to add in the starter batch of plain yogurt and whole milk to your maker. Typically, you will need two tablespoons of yogurt starter batch for every four cups of warmed up milk.
Depending on the maker, it will either take and stir in the starter batch for you or you have to stir in the starter batch. This will be the point that you either have your machine set and ready to be turned on or you will have to put in the extra effort to take the yogurt starter base you made and place it into the individual containers. After it is in the individual containers, you’ll then set the timer on your yogurt maker.
When setting the timer on your machine, you need to make sure you have it set right or you could end up getting under cooked or over cooked yogurt. The typical time recommendation in most of the cases is going to be for twelve hours, but sometimes fourteen to sixteen hours will work as well. However, a key point to realize is that it can be very bitter if you do not time it right. You’ll be making a plain yogurt here (without sugar) so it can be very bitter tasting if you do not add in any type of sugar or sweetener before you eat it.
Video: How to Make Delicious, Unprocessed Yogurt at Home
You may want to add in fruit and other stuff like flaxseed into the yogurt. When adding in fruit, it is typically added into the yogurt after the starter batch is made. This is going to allow the yogurt to get the fruit involved with it, but also have it stirred in evenly and not just lumped into a single piece of fruit at the bottom of the yogurt cup.
After the time period has completed for the cooking, you need to make sure to have the yogurt taken out within an hour or so. If it sits too long, it tends to get even bitter which will make it very difficult to taste the yogurt. After a short cooling period, though, you need to put the yogurt into the storage container you have for it.
Using a yogurt maker is a great way to make homemade unprocessed yogurt. This is when people need to make sure they know about the way a yogurt maker works. By knowing how it works and the different steps needed, it’ll make it easier for people to make yogurt at home and save money by not having to buy them at the store.