Confessions of a male yogurt eater
by
Knute
07/03/2008, 10:31 AM #
I learned to like the taste of yogurt - and the way it satisfied my hunger while I was hitchhiking (on a budget) thru Greece and the Balkans in the early '60's.
Also my mother (an early believer in whole grains and using cow manure in her garden) made her own. But hers never tasted as good as the stuff I sampled in the little village shops in Thrace - she simply let milk go sour, leaving it on top of the 'fridge over night. It never got thick - and seemed to be very sour with no special taste and made us kids gag.
Later I learned from my French friends (who also made their own - and had little incubating machines to do so) and from some further research that my mom (God bless her - she was a saint) was just rolling the dice.
Simple tips for making a half gallon of excellent yogurt, better than store-bought, and much cheaper:
- Heat the milk (I use 2%, but the more the fat content, the more delicious the result) to 180 deg. This neutralizes the anti-clotting enzyme (which nature intends to prevent coagulation in the udder and teat), and allows the end-product to thicken nicely. I use a simple candy thermometer to check - but usually this means heating the milk to just short of boil.
- Cool the mixture (I take the pan off the stove and set it in a sink of cold water) to about 100 - 110 deg. Then I mix in about two heaping tablespoons of live yogurt - either from a previous batch - or, for starters, from a plain yogurt from the store. I find the starter has a profound effect on the final taste. I like plain Dannon to start (and avoid the health-store starters and more exotic brands) - but my home brew improves after several generations. (Darwinian evolution at work).
- The tricky part is the actual culturing stage: I decant my concoction into 4 pint jars - like Mason jars or tempered glasses that have fitting plastic covers. These I put in a big stainless cooker used by normal people for cooking soups or lobsters - with a few inches of hot water in the bottom. The hard part is keeping this contraption at about 100 - 105 deg. for 4-6 hours. Painful confession: I use a heating pad under the cooker, set on low.
- I let the lactobacilli operate quietly, on their own - no jarring of the jars until I remember to put them in the fridge. The big test comes the next morning at breakfast, the first scoop should come out firm but creamy - and when sweetened with Splenda or sugar (or both for flavor) tastes to me like a "lite" fresh whipping cream. Later on the whey may separate and leave a thicker curd behind - and it can either be poured out or mixed it. It's less attractive, but as all Puritans know, is very, very good for you, and part of God's plan.
- Now, of course, you can start to experiment. I like 4% milk, but my skinny wife is appalled. Goat's milk, either pure or mixed with cow, adds a special flavor. My wife mixes in jam or berries from the garden - I've also turned it into something far better than commercial ice-cream in my simple home freezing machine.
Health benefits? Why not? Inoculation with the lactobacillis-xxx (which my microbiologist brother-in-law tells me is not really a bacillus) is a useful means of, in effect, pre-spoiling and preserving the milk, the desirable bacteria with their rapid reproduction overwhelming the undesirable and pathogenic organisms. The process also consumes much of the lactose (milk sugar) making the yogurt much more digestible than raw milk.
This, in fact, may be the entire reason for the perceived benefits of certain store-bought brands. Not only do the lactobacilli proliferate in the human gut, crowding out the less desirable types, but they may continue their digestion of substances which we find irritating - like the raw milk we had in our coffee or on our cereal.
At any rate - if you make it at home it will be fresher and more active by far than if you buy it at the store - and you will be sticking it in the eye of the establishment.
