Different Ways Of Making Yogurt At Home.

Nowadays, each and every individual is opting for fresh, healthy, and handmade foods. Eating more homemade food can reduce your risk of getting food poisoning. When we prepare meals at home, we make sure our ingredients are fresh and natural. The nutritional value of these foods is much higher than restaurant foods. Fast-food restaurants add tons of salt, sugar, and unhealthy oils to their food. To maintain your caloric intake and control your weight, you need to carefully prepare your diet and reduce the amount of salt, sugar, and saturated fat.

When I and one of my friends were kids, we used to hop on to different packaged food without looking at its nutritional contents. Our favorite thing was flavored yogurt. As time passed by, we developed the concept of eating handmade food and this enlightened us to explore different techniques of preparing yogurt with zero preservatives. Let us discuss them in detail.

A) The Traditional Indian way 

This is a traditional Indian recipe where the starter culture is referred to as jaman. You can make three different sets of jaman using green chilies, red chilies, and lemon.

Ingredients -

- 8 cups whole/skimmed milk

- 2 green chilies & 2 red chilies

- 1 lemon

Part 1: Making the Starter Culture or Jaman

1.     Bring 4 cups of milk to a boil and set it aside to cool.

2.     Squeeze the lemon juice into a bowl.

3.     Once the milk is warm, pour equal quantities into 3 different containers.

4.     Pour the lemon juice into one container of milk.

5.     Take the 2 green chilies with stalks intact and place them in the other container. Do the same with the red chilies in a separate container.

6.     Place a lid on all three containers and keep them in a warm place for 10-12 hours.

7.     After 10-12 hours your starter culture should be ready.

Part 2: Making the Yogurt

1.     Bring 4 cups of milk to boil. Once it has cooled down, pour equal amounts into 3 different bowls.

2.     Add 2 tsp of the starter culture made with lemon juice to one of the bowls. Repeat with the other starter cultures. Make sure you only add one kind of starter culture to each bowl of milk. Set the bowls aside for 6 hours.

3.     After 6 hours, the milk should have fermented to form a thick liquid.

Tips

·    Make sure you don’t chop off the stalks of the chilies because the milk will ferment only with the stalks intact.

·     Use whole milk if you want your yogurt to be dense.

·     After the yogurt has been set, it needs to be refrigerated.

·     If your yogurt is watery, place it in the refrigerator for 3-4 hours and let it thicken.

·     Don’t add too much starter culture or else the yogurt will taste sour.

 B) The Central Asian Way

It is believed that fermented milk products were first discovered by the people living in Central Asia where the high temperatures would cause milk to clabber.

Ingredients -

- 4 cups milk

- 6 chickpeas

Steps

1.     Heat the milk on the stove and bring it to a boil. Then set it aside to cool.

2.     Add the chickpeas to the milk.

3.     Cover the milk and let it sit overnight in a warm place.

4.     After 10-12 hours, the yogurt will be ready.

5.     You can use this as primary culture and add it to more milk or consume it directly.

        

       C) The Lebanese Way

    Bread is already fermented, so using it to create a starter culture should be a no-brainer. The Lebanese have figured out how to make yogurt without starter culture in their own unique way.

     

i     Ingredients - 

      - 4 cups of whole milk

      - 1 loaf of bread or sourdough

      - 1 lemon

      - salt

Steps

1.     Heat up the milk on the stove and let it cool after it has boiled.

2.     Break the inner part of a loaf of bread into tiny pieces.

3.     Sprinkle a dash of salt over the pieces of bread.

4.     Pour lemon juice over the bread.

5.     Add warm milk to this mixture.

6.     Cover with a lid and keep it in a warm place and add a little warm milk every day for 2 weeks.

7.     At the end of 2 weeks, your primary culture should be ready. You can remove the pieces of bread using a slotted spoon.

8.     Add this primary culture to more milk that has been boiled and cooled and set it aside for 10-12 hours to get creamy yogurt.

 D) Using Cardamom

Cardamom is a spice made from plants that are native to India and Indonesia. It is widely used in Asian cuisine and also has medicinal properties. This is an incredibly simple recipe that details how to make yogurt without a starter culture bought from a store.

Ingredients -

- 1/2 pint raw milk
- 20 cardamom seeds

Steps

1.     Boil the milk and pour it into a container to let it cool.

2.     Add the cardamom seeds to the milk once it is warm.

3.     Make sure you submerge them completely and they are not floating on the surface.

4.     Cover the container and set it aside for 10-14 hours so that the milk can ferment.

5.     Once the milk has fermented, you can remove the cardamom seeds. 

6.     Store the starter culture in the refrigerator in an airtight jar.

7.     You can add small quantities of this homemade starter culture to milk and make more yogurt as and when you please.

Tips

·     Do not stir the milk after you’ve added the cardamom seeds.

·     The starter culture will last for 2-3 weeks in the fridge, so make sure you use it before that.

Mistakes to avoid while making homemade yogurt 

1. Don’t constantly shake the container or open it to check if the yogurt has set. Yogurt-making requires patience. It is best to add the homemade starter culture to the jar just before you go to bed so that both you and the yogurt can rest well.

2. The milk that you use should be as fresh as possible. Milk that has been sitting in the refrigerator for a few days may not be the best option.

3. If you’ve been incubating yogurt in plastic jars and it hasn’t been setting well, try shifting to wooden, glass or steel containers.

4. Don’t consume all the yogurt you’ve put in so much effort to make. Save a few spoons and use it as a starter culture for your next batch to save time. 

5. Even if the milk is pasteurized, make sure you boil it. Don’t add the starter culture when the milk is piping hot.

Yogurt is really easy to make at home if proper precautions are taken. The results might not be accurate sometimes but you can give it a try at least! If you are looking for vegan yogurt, you can try making it with almond milk or soy milk. Thank you for listening patiently. I hope you make your own homemade yogurt through these methods. Stay tuned for my next blog where I will be showing you one of my demonstrations of these methods, along with its failures and success. 

Yogurt & low-fat? Let's make it possible together!