My Homemade Yoghurt

For the past one year, I've been hearing my colleague (B), a male one, making his own yoghurt. He explained it to us many times over but somehow it sounded darn troublesome. The lazy me would rather just reach out those tubs in supermarket fridges, well until one day I made him bring some for us to try. I was wowed for the texture was slightly different from store bought and it tasted creamy with a nice hint of vanilla flavour. It's not as sourish as store bought tubs Z(the plain ones). That batch I was told made from HL milk, plain yoghurt and some Yakult. He uses both yoghurt and Yakult cos both contained different strain of bacterias.

Now, B had learnt this from errmm yet another male colleague A (pssst A is still very much available kekeke), so we asked him to bring his version for us to taste. Oh my this one really blown us all away!!! The texture was thicker and wayyy creamier... so very different. I was told the temperature of the milk will cause this.

That very weekend I set out making my own yoghurt with A's method as B's method involved in using thermal cooker which I do not own one.

This was A's method...

Equipments needed:
1 tall biscuit tin with cover
newspapers
1 clean and dry glass jar

Ingredients:
1 litre fresh milk, I used HL plain milk (can use strawberry as well)
2/3 tub plain yoghurt (small tub I think 225ml)


Firstly, insulate a clean biscuit tin with thick layers of newspaper on the sides and bottom. This is to ensure the milk is kept warm for a longer period in order for the bacteria to multiply.

Next, find a glass jar which is big enough for the amount of yoghurt you wish to make and smaller enough to be inserted into the insulated biscuit tin. I've used Nescafe bottle which can be filled with almost the entire 1 litre milk. You can use smaller jar, so just need to adjust the amount of milk accordingly.



Heat up milk in saucepan. Let it come to the point of small bubbles start to appear on the side of the pan. Make sure do not boil the milk!!! My colleague's method was to pour the milk into glass bottle then do the temperature test by touching the glass bottle. If you can touch it without withdrawing your hand, then it's good to go. It has to be warm and not hot. For myself, I just test it by scooping some milk with the spoon and place my finger onto the milk :p I washed my hands first ok before doing this heh. Since I don't have a food thermometer, I'm not sure but as long as it's not boiling hot nor it's too cold, has to be slightly higher than comfortable level.

Pour milk into glass jar and stir in yoghurt. Put on the cover and place jar into the insulated tin. Place some newspaper over before covering the tin lightly with the lid. Set aside for about 8 hours or so. What I usually do is I make this at night and voila, I'll have the yoghurt ready the next morning.



For me, I was a bit kiasi that it will not work kekeke so I place the tin next to my fridge wall with the tin touching it cos the wall was hot but then do that note that the wall doesn't stay hot all the time though. You don't need to do this as it worked as well without extra temperature from the fridge :p.

For B's method, he just place the milk into a thermal cooker without having to worry about keeping the milk warm. This is easier but A argued that his poor man's method worked as well kakaka.



Once it's done, scoop out the yoghurt with clean dry spoon into air tight containers and store in the fridge. Remember to use clean dry spoon to scoop out your yoghurt. Ohh and yes, keep some in another container to make your next batch of yoghurt!

Well, so far we loved the yoghurt and have been eating it with fruits and cereals. So making your own yoghurt is actually very easy, don't need any fancy schmancy store bought equipment nor powder. Go make some today!

Note: (added 22 January 2010)

In the event that you're not successful in curdling the milk (you can call it failed yoghurt but in actual fact it became yoghurt drink), don't throw away the concoction. Turn them into yoghurt drink/lassi by blending the so called failed yoghurt with fruits like mango, peach, kiwi, orange etc.