ISO info on homemade yogurt starter

[Chef Munky]

Is it possible to make your own starter from home without buying & using the commercial brand kits. Or a container bought from the store?

We go through quite a bit of yogurt and cottage cheese around here. Like everything else the prices are getting ridiculous. Since I do have the equipment. Dehydrator, canning jars of all kinds sitting in the garage doing nothing. Why not?

Thank you

Munky.

[taxlady]

I never buy a commercial kit or starter when I make yogourt. I just buy a plain yogourt from a brand that has live lacto bacillus. Nowadays, they will usually brag about the fact that their bacterial culture is live or "probiotic".

30 years ago, all plain yogourt had live bacteria. Then, for some reason, they started selling yogourt with dead bacteria. Now, the live ones are back in fashion.

The brand I use never quit having live bacteria in their yogourt.

Sour cream and crème fraiche are even easier to make than yoghurt.

[Andy M.]

As a kid growing up, I watched my mom make yogurt at home. She made a half gallon every week because my dad did not consider dinner complete until he had a dish of yogurt.

Once you get yogurt going, you just save a couple of spoonfuls of this batch to use the starter for the next.

If mom lost that starter, she'd just run out to the store and buy some yogurt (she always bought Colombo yogurt as it was owned by Armenians back then).

[CharlieD]

you could add a spoon of lemon juice to a slightly warmed up milk. I am not sure if the end result would be consider a true yogurt though.

[taxlady]

Originally Posted by CharlieD

you could add a spoon of lemon juice to a slightly warmed up milk. I am not sure if the end result would be consider a true yogurt though.

That makes cottage cheese.

[MostlyWater]

Depends. I found mine was better with a bought yogurt and of course milk, but .... sometimes my homemade yougrt didn't set up right, and then it was garbage. At some point, I just started buying yogurt and cottage cheese again.

[taxlady]

I found that if I can keep a yogourt going, that the flavour becomes "softer".

[CharlieD]

All this talk about yogurt made hungry for it. I made this special yogurt. It is made from baked milk. Ok I cheat I use the slow cooker to make the milk. And then when milk cooled down to slightly warm temperature I add 2 cups of regular yogurt mixed it well a let it seat the whole day on the counter. I had maybe a ¾ of a gallon of milk. Milk has to be warm otherwise it is not going to set. You will just get bad milk.

Well when I got to that point I got hungry for pancakes and I made pancakes with that yogurt, oh my gosh were they yummy.
Here is couple of pictures.

[CharlieD]

Not sure how to add comment to the picktures. The first pick is the yogurt. Then the pancakes, the last one is also the pancake, but I graded couple of apples inside.