Obsessed with Yogurt

[lwood]

As promised...



The setup is thus:

One quart of 2% (reduced fat) milk, 1/2 cup of powdered milk (mmm, protein), 2 T veryverylocal honey, 1/2 c Nancy's organic nonfat yogurt, combined after the fashion of Alton Brown.

One container (bigger than a quart for safety) to hold the culturing yogurt, wrapped in a heating pad, the whole plopped into a container of just the right size to hold the heating pad up against the culturing container (continuing after the fashion described above).

Batch One: Sunday, 1 April: countgeiger and I, after breakfast, amble through the Albertson's grocery by Lake Merritt. I get a quart of Nancy's yogurt, full of probiota liek whoa. Over the course of the day, I freeze most of this, but culture 1/2 cup into more yogurt, using organic milk as a base--one, "yay organic", two, antibiotic residue in milk in which I am deliberately attempting to raise bacteria doesn't seem like a good idea.

I bring the makings to Greyhaven and start them. Unfortunately, I'm actually at Greyhaven for one of those devotional parties that make most sane folks, especially including heathens, run away, and as such I'm quite distracted. It's not long before, on one of the runs I'm making to take the culture's temperature and ensure it's cooking along at the ideal 115°, I leave the culture out of the pad and it runs down to idle. It's still achieved yogurt, just not as well-gelled as I would like. I've been eating this for breakfasts this week. The flavor is not very well-developed, and it's runnier than I would like--both from insufficient culture time and the disruptive effect of agitation on gel formation (I stirred it too much while it was culturing!).

Freezing the leftover commercial yogurt is necessary: saving some yogurt to make new yogurt makes progressively stronger yogurt. Saving some of the original culture in the freezer preserves the original, and makes a useful control.

Batch Two: 2-3 April: The leftover starter yogurt of yesterday was frozen into ice cubes for more testing. I have determined that six cubes weigh a bit more than half a cup of completed yogurt, so I set these in a covered bowl to thaw to room temperature over a couple of hours. While AB likes six hours to culture yogurt, my schedule is such that I'm going to try popping it in as I go to bed, and taking it out when I get up. This, and another just like it, will be used to make yogurt cheese.

This sets up nicely, with pleasant tang and good, creamy consistency. Eight: it's the new six. I put the rest in the original commercial yogurt's container for safekeeping until I finish the second batch.

Batch Three: 3-4 April: I'm out of my original organic milk, so I buy a quart of conventional Berkeley Farms. I'm also out of time, so I defrost the starter cubes for one minute in the microwave at 30%.

One of these was a bad idea. Not sure which, because changing two variables, as everyone knows, is bad science. Either the microwave killed a lot of the culture, even at low power, or there's antibiotic residue sloshing around the milk, even after pasteurization which would have put a right hurtin' on the antibiotics (or so one would think). Yogurt does happen, so not everyone died, but it's rather runnier than the previous batch, so there was clearly a significant die-off that couldn't be patched up over the culturing run. It doesn't taste significantly different, but in case some interloper was introduced, I toss the whole thing. Organic milk only from now on, and thaw the starter on the countertop!

Thirdly, I may have failed at properly tempering the starter culture with the milk mixture: I didn't trickle while constantly whisking, but dumped and then whisked, which may have caused yet another dieoff, this from thermal shock.

Batch Four: 5-6 April

I have obtained fresh starter yogurt and organic milk, although I also happen to have two batches of the original culture left in the freezer. This time, with organic milk, room-temperature not-microwaved starter, and trickling my temper, things work as expected, and the second half of the cheesemaking batch sets successfully.

So, after all of that, I have two quarts of yogurt, which I'm going to squeeeesh into soft cheese, thus:

Cheese One: 6-7 April (projected)

Tonight, I'm going to take the two batches, wrap in cheesecloth, and allow to drain in the refrigerator under weight. The result is going to Greyhaven for taste testing on Sunday during Tea. Some will be plain, some will dance with roasted garlic, some will get cozy with basil, and yet more with sundried tomatoes, the whole to be nibbled with $flatbread. Should this all go over well, I'll probably do it all over again for Hrafnar, only with different flavorings: dill, garlic, straight, and I-dunno-yet.

Tea at Greyhaven is an open affair, should anyone be interested. 8-) Perhaps not this week, it's Easter/Twins' Birthday/Etc. Well, Hrafnar Happens anyway. ;)

-- Lorrie