DIY Yogurt Revisited

Inspired by a previous post, I decided I was going to attempt to make homemade yogurt. I was excited when I found out that people can easily make their own yogurt; I had never heard of that before. I also really love yogurt and wanted to try and save some money. There was only one problem, would I like it? I wasn't sure if after all of these years of living off of Yoplait yogurt and the occasional Greek yogurt (if it was on sale) had conditioned me to only liking store bought yogurt. I didn't want to invest in buying a yogurt maker if I was going to end up not using it. After some research, I was saved by the always amazing Crock Pot.

I found easy to follow instructions at this blog for Crock Pot yogurt and all it takes is a half gallon of milk and about 6oz. of yogurt you like (for the first time, and then you can use small portions of your homemade yogurt the rest of the time). It's really easy and takes almost no work, just waiting. After you put the milk in the Crock Pot on low heat, you wait 2.5 hours. Then you let the milk cool, and wait for 3 hours. Then you mix your 6 oz. of yogurt in, place the Crock Pot (off) in a semi-warm place (like your oven with the light turned on, oven is off - warn your roommates before doing this!), and you wait 8-12 hours (overnight).

After you let your milk culture overnight, it is now yogurt! It's recommended to refrigerate for 8 hours before eating. You can make your yogurt thicker and into more of a Greek style yogurt by straining the yogurt with cheesecloth and a colander for a couple hours to strain out some of the whey. Also, if you use whole milk to start with, the yogurt will be thicker and creamier.

You can add flavor at this point like sugar or vanilla extract; however, I've found having plain yogurt with some granola and blueberries is tasty on it's own. Enjoy!