Making yogurt in the dehydrator – the night time stood still
It was supposed to be a quick, easy learning experience. Heat milk, cool it down, stir in live yogurt and put in dehydrator. Wait 4-8 hours.
Instead, I appeared to walk in quicksand. The faster I moved, the slower things got done. I actually laughed at my futility last evening and how much trouble I had bringing milk to an almost boil and then cooling it precisely. It was a great night – just not the one I had planned.
Making yogurt appears fairly simple. I am not a pro yet, but here’s what I tried based on reading a lot of stuff:
- Heat 1 quart (liter) of any type of milk to a near boil. 200 degrees Ffarenheit seems optimal (some material said to boil it). Using a double boiler (the pot with milk is suspended in a slightly larger one with boiling water to avoid direct heat on the milk) will help avoid burning and require less stirring. It also slows you way down – especially if you don’t put a cover on.
- Some recipes called for powdered mil at this point – it was generally optional and increased health benefit and creaminess. I did not add it.
- Once your milk is at temperature, you need to lower the temp to between 110-120 degrees (no lower). You can speed this up by putting your bowl in a cold water bath to cool it down. This would have been even quicker if I had transferred it to a new bowl and used the water bath.
- Preheat the dehydrator. We put ours at 115 – again having read anything from 110-120.
- Add 1/4-1/2 a cup of yogurt to milk (I did this as my milk hit 130 as I didn’t want to drop under 110). The yogurt must be plain and must contain live bacteria culture – we are fermenting and creating more bacteria in this process.
- Pour the entire mixture into a container. Many use plastic yogurt containers – I opted for a glass mason jar (1 liter wide mouth for easy access and cleaning)
- Put in dehydrator for 4-8 hours until your desired thickness is reached. Note it will set a little more in the fridge than when warm and that it’s natural for a skin to form on the surface of your yogurt that you simply throw out.
I’ve had a taste of the warm product and it’s definitely yogurt like. I suspect I am going to be thrilled with the final product and, despite my inner turtle, this was a lot of fun and could be made very easily.
A few other tidbits:
- the longer it stays in the dehydrator, the tangier it will be.
- It may continue to set for several days.
- You can drain the whey (the liquid) or miz it in once set.
- It should last 1-2 weeks. If you are using some of this yogurt to create another batch, it is best to do so within 5-7 days.
There were a lot of yogurt nuts when we posted about thickening yogurt – any tips out there on making yogurt from your experiences?
Comments
Wow you are very precise with your temps and timing! I’m much more casual. I heat the milk in a pot ( never tried the double boiler but it makes sense) stirring occasionally, till bubbles just begin to appear. Remove it from the heat and set aside to cool. When it feels lukewarm I add the starter, give it a good stir to distribute the culture and leave the pot overnight in my gas oven. The heat from the pilot light seems to work perfectly.
Before I had a gas stove, I used to wrap the entire pot in a towel and stick it in the microwave overnight( not turned on of course!) It always turned out fine. I’m either really lucky with yogurt or it’s pretty foolproof- not sure which!
Laughing Heather,
perhaps precise in technique but we’ll see with results. This is a new adventure for us…
The double boiler makes sense except ours was not a precise fit (though very close) and it literally took hours to heat. If those were my only two pots, I think I’d simply do it on the stove with care and lots of stirring. I thought the exercise was going to take about 15 minutes, it turned in to about 2-2.5 hours – mostly, if not entirely, due to pilot (aka me) error.
Live and learn
i think I’ll try it much more casual next time and see what happens 
I have done lots of experiementing. I heat my milk in the microwave until 180, then cool to 110. I always add non-instant skim milk powder – makes a firmer yogurt. Then I add my powdered yogurt starter, which I have found to work better than yogurt in my experience. My favourite is to sweeten with maple syrup and add some maple extract. I have experiment with many flavors. I pour it into jars and put them into my retro 70′s yogurt maker that used to belong to my brother. Yum.
where do you get the powdered yogurt starter?
Al, we started with just milk and a bit of yogurt but I am told that powdered yogurt starter is indeed a great trick (our results were mixed) – planning to try again in fall and winter (the dehydrator throws a lot of heat). However, I imagine the carrot common and most health stores which sell groceries would have it (I found some in an organic grocery store in Newmarket today). It is kept in the fridge, often near the yogurt itself.
Let us know when you find it – if I bump in to it downtown, I will pdate here.
[...] More jerky and fruit leathers. Greater experimentation with yogurt. [...]
[...] became an avid fan of yogurt this winter (something I ironically forget to buy often). I loved putting additional ingredients [...]
[...] DIY yogurt incubator Everyone seems to be getting into yogurt-making lately. Here is my take on the totally easy, totally worthwhile [...]
[...] Yogurt maker [...]
[...] yogurt is very similar to ‘regular’ yogurt (here’s how to make yogurt using a dehydrator) only it’s much thicker. The thickness comes from the removal of the whey (it looks like [...]
I add gelatin to the mix and it makes it more thicker and gives it a denser texture, just something I do with the pow milk too. I will say this from experience. I have lemon trees and thought it would be nice to add some zest (only) to it. Well, it never sets if you do so don’t make that mistake. You can add it after. Was really delish though. Thanks for the post!