I have been playing in the kitchen recently. Using the excess of goat milk we currently have as well as various herb concoctions. Today I am going to tell you about my yogurt making escapades.

What I can’t get over with this yogurt is how fresh, smooth, creamy and nice tasting it is.  So much better than store yogurt. I love the texture even though the store yogurt is thicker.  It is the smoothness and the creamy texture.  Even when I leave it to culture for 17 hours in a lightly heated oven and than 2-3 hours to set on stove than 12 hours or more in filter.  You would think with all that time to culture that it would be sour and strong tasting…but it isn’t. It is still super smooth and creamy.  Store yogurt is not that smooth or creamy.  Store tastes more fake. This doesn’t.  I may never be able to eat store yogurt again.

I wonder if it is because it is GOAT milk.  I can’t drink cow milk but have always thought I could handle cow milk yogurt. I think cow milk yogurt was disturbing me more than I realised. I did not suspect it until eating this yogurt. Now I am not having stomach cramps or pains or any queasy feelings.  Yes, I think maybe I was struggling with cow milk more than I thought.

This may seem like a lot of time to make a snack food but to me, this is my meal. I have a tendency to stick the yogurt mixture in the oven to culture and forget it is there. Or set it on the stove to cool before filtering and get distracted with a side quest so it goes past the 2 hours I had intended.  The ranges of time in my recipe reflect me forgetting it and being distracted with some other project. It uses 2 ingredients.

2 quarts goat milk (Or cow milk)

2 TBS store Greek yogurt (plain, unsweetened, no thickners and with live active cultures. Look for at least 5 strains with one being Casein)

I just heat milk on stove in my cast iron enamel Dutch oven pan. I wanted a deep heavy bottom pan. I heat it to about 190-200 degrees.  I found any temp in there works.  It is important to take it to 190 and keep it there for 5-10 mins.  That helps certain proteins in goat milk to change and activate which makes a thicker culture.  

Cool milk temperature down to 110-120.  I let it sit with lid on partially for first 30 mins so it keeps that temperature up for a little while.  Then I take lid off to cool it faster because I get impatient.  Usually I can have it cooled in an hour down to about 108-120.  Not over 120 at all or it will be too hot and kill active live bacteria in your culture. Below 108 and the culture will grow too slowly.

I use a full fat Greek style plain yogurt for my culture. I have at least 5 strains of live cultures in it making sure one is the Casein.  That one makes thicker yogurt. After you make your first batch of successful yogurt, you can separate about a half cup to put in fridge to use as your culture to make next batch of yogurt. As long as you use it in the next week. Otherwise, you may need to use store yogurt for your culture again.

I put my yogurt culture into a small dish and spoon some of the heated milk into the small bowl.  Mix the yogurt culture and heated milk before pouring it into the pan of heated milk.  This is to make sure the yogurt that you add doesn’t bring temperature of milk in the pan down too much.  Stir it in well.

Slap lid on the pan and I stuff it in my oven.  Gas pilot keeps it heated pretty good.  I have left it anywhere from 12-17 hours to culture. Don’t stir it. Don’t move or jiggle it. Don’t turn oven on accidentally or heat your stovetop hot. Just put it in there and leave it alone. Ignore it and forget it like I do. I put it in the oven overnight, so it cultures as long as it takes me to remember it is there and to rescue it back out.  Than I let it sit on stove 2-3 hours…this seems to help it cool some and thicken better.  Than I pour into a special purpose strainer for Greek yogurt that I bought off of Amazon.  I leave it to strain in fridge 8-12 hours. The strainer separates the whey and makes that thick Greek style yogurt.  The strainer has a lid that keeps stuff out of the yogurt while it strains so it isn’t taking up space on counter.

Than I eat whole batch in a half hour.

Ok…sometimes I show a little bit of restraint and make it last 5-6 hours but anything past that is just torture.

I do not like plain yogurt. But I have eaten an entire pint plain with a long handled spoon right out of the jar as a meal.  My favorite way is stirring a tsp of local honey into a bowl of the yogurt.  I tried it with a little dash of cardamom.  No….and some cinnamon added but that was a definite no also even with me being a cinnamon lover.  Plain or a little honey…perfect.

I also like how I know it is full of live bacteria.  The good kind that I need in my gut.  The root of my digestion issues is not enough good bacteria and too much bad bacteria in my gut.  Good or Bad Health starts in the gut.  I am trying to work on that.. And I needed to do something with all that goat milk!

The old saying “You are what you eat”  is not exactly true.  “You are what you DIGEST!”  THAT is more the real truth.