I have been making yogurt for over 5 years now. Making yogurt really is easy and it’s convenient and cheap. After you have done it once or twice, you will be able to figure out what works best for you. The best part is you will be able to provide your family with fresh homemade yogurt on a regular basis.

Here’s the recipe:

Things you will need:

4 cups or 1 litre milk
1/2 cup powdered milk
3 tablespoon plain yogurt with live cultures (room temperature)
Storage containers/jars

Method:

1. Pour 4 cups or 1 litre milk into a pot or saucepan. Heat milk until about 175 – 185°C or bubbles around edge of pot. Stir often to prevent scorching.

2. Cool the milk until about 50 – 55°C. If you do not have a thermometer, just wash your hands and stick your little pinkie into the mixture and if it is painfully hot, let it cool a bit longer. If it’s very warm but not painfully hot, it is about the right temperature. Remove film from top and discard. Stir in powdered milk.

3. Place plain yogurt in a small bowl and add 1/3 cup warm milk and mix until smooth. Stir in the mixture into remaining milk.

4. Pour mixture into your containers. (I like to strain it through a small wire mesh strainer while I’m pouring it into the jars).

5. Incubate the yogurt for minimum 5 hours, longer or even overnight. Do not shake/disturb incubation. After 3 hours check to see if yogurt is set by tilting containers gently. If yogurt is set and firm, place it in fridge and chill before serving. If not continue to incubate. (I normally leave the yogurt to set overnight and refrigerate it in the morning)

If incubate using the oven, warm the oven to about 115°C.(If your oven does not have a low temperature setting, just set it to the lowest temperature possible and allow it to heat up for a bit). Then turn the oven off. Set the container in the oven.

Helpful tips:

a) If for some reason the yogurt did not set after 3 hours, don’t panic – just squeeze some lemon on the mixture.

b) If your homemade yogurt is fresh enough you can use it as the starter next time. To do this easily, without feeling like you constantly need to be making a fresh batch of yogurt, you can freeze a tablespoon of your fresh homemade yogurt to save as a starter.