HappyMama

Comment by stephanie

May 11, 2008 @ 9:36 am

I have tried doing this a few times, but it comes out runny, though the flavor is good. What brand of plain yogurt do you use? (I’ve tried a few different brands - some are better than others). Do you have a “yogurt maker”? My last try was with our food dehydrator, following the recipe provided…still runny with 2% milk & unflavored gelatin…do I just need to go “all the way” with whole milk AND powdered milk AND gelatin to get the store-bought consistency, or is runny yogurt just as good for you. Happy Mother’s Day!

Comment by happymama

May 11, 2008 @ 11:50 am

hi, i think nutritionally it’s the same, whatever the consistency. For thickness, you can add powdered milk (1/2 C per 2 qts. milk) in addition to the gelatin. The yogurt you use should also be fairly fresh, to make sure the cultures are still active. Yes, we did get an incubator, and for our first batch, I used organic whole milk and a yogurt starter. Because we’ll use part of this batch to make the next one, I wanted to make it really good! You don’t need an incubator, of course, but it holds the milk at a steady 110 the whole time it’s on, and I figured as much as we’d be using it, it’d be worth it.

Comment by Niki

May 21, 2008 @ 7:57 am

I too make my own yoghurt. I do use gelatin to thicken it up a little and I froze my purchased yoghut in ice cube trays and use this as starter for the homemade stuff. They say you can use your homemade stuff for started but I have better luck with buying one container and freezing. Because you only use 3-4 cubes a tub will last a long time. I also use prepared skim milk powder and that way it is much cheaper and I have no milk containers to throw away. Because you are using gelatin to make it thicker there is no problem doing this.

Comment by happymama

May 27, 2008 @ 2:01 pm

You are right, I’d been meaning to do the math - Walmart’s powdered milk will make a gallon for $2.90. This is cheaper, plus you don’t have to pre-heat the milk this way, so it’s faster! And powdered milk has more protein in it than even whole milk.