I’ve been making yogurt for about a year now, and I thinking I’m ready to put the system down on paper (or screen if you will). This is my yogurt maker.
It is a Eurocuisine YM100. You can buy it from Amazon. It costs about forty bucks, and trust me it’s definitely worth the ten bucks extra (over the thirty dollar YM80) for the automatic timer. I also suggest the you shell out the extra twenty bucks for a set of extra jars. Otherwise you have to wait for all the yogurt to be eaten in order to make your next batch. You also need a candy thermometer.
Many people make yogurt with nothing but a mason jar and a wood stove, but I just never could make that happen, and frankly, I’m a little in love with my yogurt maker.
OK, now you have your supplies. For one batch of yogurt, this is what you will need:
4 1/4 cups of milk (I use raw milk, but use what you like)
6 oz. plain fatty yogurt (more on this later)
4 T nonfat dry milk powder
So let’s talk about these ingredients. Because I have access to some pretty wicked awesome raw milk, this is what I use. And the method that I will lay out for you is different from the one that comes in your yogurt maker instructions, because I don’t want to heat it so much that I will kill all the good things in the raw milk. If you are using raw milk, you’ve already made this decision and you know all the things like how you should be absolutely sure of the perfection and cleanliness of the farm, etc., etc, so I won’t go into that. This method, however, will also work with pasteurized milk, so don’t stress it if that is what you want to use.
As for the yogurt in the recipe, this is your starter. If you buy a little thing of yogurt, you can use it as a starter, and then you can use one of that batch as your next starter. This is as far as you can go with it. So one little cup of yogurt will get you two cycles of starter. I have found that the absolute best starter is full fat Greek yogurt. It makes a huge difference.
You also need nonfat dry milk. Organic valley makes a decent one, or sometimes you can find it in the bulk section at the health food store. If you’re going to use the low heat method that I set out here, you must include dry milk or else your yogurt will be runny. If you don’t mind runny yogurt, by all means leave it out.
So here’s the process. Heat your milk at a low temperature until it hits 110 degrees. This happens pretty quickly, so I’d stick close to the stove.
Empty your starter yogurt into a mixing bowl or large measuring cup. Add about 1c of warm milk, and the 4 T of dry milk. Whisk until fairly smooth. Don’t worry if there are a few lumps.
Add this mixture back into the rest of the warm milk. Whisk until slightly frothy.
Pour entire mixture into a large measuring cup for easy pouring. Fill jars up to the top.
Leave the lids of the containers off, but put the lid of the machine on. Set the timer for eleven hours. Put the machine somewhere where it won’t be nudged or disturbed.
After the eleven hours are up, put the lids on the jars and put them into the fridge. The yogurt will be ready in two hours.
A note on flavors: My experience has been that with homemade yogurt, it is best to make it plain. When more variables get introduced into the situation, the cultures can get a little screwy and sometimes even up and die on you. So make it plain, and then add yummy things to it afterwards.
Occasionally I teach workshops, and I have one coming up this fall. Join me and stellar novelist 
this is so cool!! i’d love to make my own yogurt, but i don’t have a yogurt maker.
Oooh! Lovely! Questions…
– how long can the yogurt last in the fridge?
– do you need to have more ingredients for each starter, or do you sometimes use your previous batch as a starter?
I have found that the yogurt is good for at least two weeks. I can use one from a previous batch only once as a starter. So I have to buy a new starter every two batches. I have tried extending the starter, but after the first batch the cultures seem to weaken, and the yogurt doesn’t work out as well.
I used to make yogurt when I lived in Belize…with nothing but a big, old pot wrapped in beach towels. My recipe was pretty close to yours. I got my starter from a Creole cook…no commercial yogurt back then.
hi! my mom has been making yogurt for years, using the dry milk method. a couple of years ago, her trusty ol' recipe was yielding really runny yogurt. she tried all kinds of substitutions and realized non-organic dry milk was the culprit. she's always been… thrifty. so it's not really in her nature to buy organic. but she's now convinced that non-organic stuff kills the culture. anti-biotics maybe?
Hi Alana,
First, thank you so much for your down-to-earth approach – it’s like a breath of fresh air!
Second…have you tried making yogurt with goat’s milk?? I’d like to try a less lactose method…any thoughts?
Thanks!
Hi Susan! I haven’t actually made goat milk yogurt, but you can certainly follow the same process, and I know many who have. The only thing that I know about goat yogurt is that it tends to be a bit runnier, so you might want to add an additional coagulant like nonfat dry milk powder or tapioca starch.
Hi Alana,
Does heating up the raw milk kill the healthy enzymes in it?
Thanks!
Hi Theresa! Normally, you’d head milk to 185 degrees before making yogurt, and that absolutely will kill all the good enzymes. But 110 (as far as I’ve been taught) is the magic temperature to support both the living enzymes in the culture AND the milk.
I just got your lovely book as a birthday gift, and I read it cover-to-cover. I haven’t made anything out of it yet, but I have tons of recipes marked to try and will do so ASAP.
I wanted to post here because I make my own yogurt (without a yogurt maker), and your book is the only place I have ever read that *life changing* tip about icing the pot. I cook and bake a lot and read a lot of recipes and books and have never seen that advice before. And wow, does it work. So, thanks for that, and for many delicious meals to come!
Hey Alana, I was at your Ocean House class and an wanting to try the crock pot yogurt since I don’t have a yogurt maker but when I try to get the recipe it sends me to the Raw Milk Yogurt recipe instead. Not sure why…
Hi Robin! So sorry about that. Here’s the right post 🙂
http://www.eatingfromthegroundup.com/2012/05/crock-pot-greek-yogurt/
Pesticide run off helps contribute negatively to drinking water, and the eco-system.
This is because different crops take different minerals
from the soil, and rotation allows for recovery. As mentioned above, it is a approach about cultivating plants, using water mixed with nutrients.
Honey is also being used in beer and other beverage like teas and is
readily becoming a hugely useful product that puts a lot of beekeepers
back in the spotlight to produce high quality honey.
What makes organic fertilizers different from chemical fertilizers
is that the materials are a by-product of vegetables, animals or minerals.
What are the benefits of using a yogurt maker as opposed to just using jars on the counter?
Hi Laura, The goal is to keep the milk as close to 110°F as possible while it cultures. So an electric or insulated yogurt maker will help keep that temperature up. That being said, it’s possible to rig up many other ways to do it, whether you’re wrapping the jars in a blanket, keeping them in a cooler, in an oven with a pilot light, etc.
Thanks for the quick reply!!! That makes sense. I had seen another recipe where the jars were just left on the counter with no attempt at keeping the temp up, so I was confused. Thanks 🙂