Morning yogurt report
The nonfat batch with added milk powder made with the Yogourmet culture turned out extremely good, particularly with the trick Steve of Kafeneio passed along: a towel atop the finished yogurt to wick away the whey. You squeeze the towel dry, replace, and repeat until the yogurt is thick. This is much easier with a 2-qt batch than trying to drain the yogurt. (I stand corrected: he learned this from his aunt, not his grandmother. And she used fabric towels—wash, dry, and reuse—rather than paper towels. I used both; either works.)
The goat milk cultured buttermilk is great. The crème fraîche I decided was not quite thick enough, so it’s back on the counter with the culture getting back to work.
The Filmjölk culture I put into a quart of whole milk, straight, seems to be working quite well this time, with the yogurt already getting firm. I’ll let it go all day.
The incubated 2-qt batch I started in the Yogourmet yogurt maker yesterday—whole milk brought to 180F and then cooled to 110F, with 1 cup of nonfat dried milk whisked in, and then some of the result of the Greek yogurt I made that had such a cheese-like flavor—completed working and is solid. It’s in the fridge now, topped with towels.
On the whole, the yogurt experience is going well. I certainly see that I can easily make at home as good a yogurt as I could buy, with a great range of cultures. And the buttermilk/crème fraîche culture is quite interesting: I don’t think my store offers cultured buttermilk made with goat’s milk, for example. (BTW, be careful: Whole Foods offers two types of goat’s milk: ultra-pasteurized, unsuitable for yogurt making, and pasteurized, which is fine.) I do like the idea of making 2-qt batches: more payoff from the same amount of effort.
It’s good to have 1-liter jars to make 1-qt batches, especially with the room-temperature yogurts: making a batch of those is trivial, and the 1-liter size allows room for the volume of starter required from the previous batch. You just pour a quart of milk into the jar and add the yogurt. You can whip in some nonfat powdered milk, but I haven’t bothered for those.
