Homemade yogurt using your slow cooker

You can make yogurt so many ways it's incredible.. the main points are heating your milk to 180-200 degrees, cooling your milk to about 110 degrees, adding your tempered yogurt and keeping it warm enough for a few hours to do it's job. I like the crock pot (slow cooker) method because it's predictable timing, and my resulting yogurt had the same consistency, smell and taste as the store bought Dannon plain yogurt! Oh, about that store bought yogurt.. separate it into 1/2 cups and freeze so you have fresh starter many more times. Just take what you need out of the freezer and thaw it in refrigerator before you need to add. You can use your homemade plain yogurt as your starter, but you can only do that a few times before it's kinda worn out and you need fresh.

What you need:

1) 2 quarts milk- pasteurized (ie store bought). Doesn't matter if it's whole, low fat or skim.. your preference. You can use powdered milk too.. (3 C dry milk powder and 2 quarts water)

making yogurt using powdered milk

2) 2+2/3 C Additional nonfat dry milk powder (the extra milk protein helps make the yogurt firmer)

3) 1/2 C store bought yogurt- unflavored, cultured. Make sure the product states it contains live (active) yogurt culture. It should state CONTAINS.. not made with.. I use Dannon All Natural plain yogurt. You need your starter yogurt to contain the live bacteria!

4) sugar or honey (optional, (I use about 1/4 C sugar))

You  need a 4-5 qt crock pot. ( or slow cooker ) :).. and a towel!

Of course make sure all your utensils and crock are CLEAN CLEAN CLEAN!
Okay.. Pour your milk ,milk powder and sugar/honey into the crock pot and stir. Cover, plug in your crock and cook on low for about 2 1/2 hours. What you're doing is warming that milk up enough (between 180*-200*) to kill off any bad bacteria that may be in there plus any antibiotics (if your store bought milk has been treated with it) Why?? Well, your yogurt culture IS a bacteria- L. bulgaricus and S. thermophilus are the main ones, plus some yogurts contain L. acidophilus and /or B. bifidum. All those are the good bacteria we want in our tummies! LOL, ok.. enough science.

After 2 1/2 hours, turn off your crock and unplug it (just so ya know it is in fact off.. I have made that mistake before!) Don't peek under the lid.. leave it alone, untouched for 3 hours..


After 3 hours, if you have a candy thermometer, check the temp of your milk. It should be pretty close to 110*-115*.. the ideal temp for your yogurt cultures to "live free and multiply"! If your milk is warmer than 120*, well, it will kill your cultures. Lower than 100* is too low to wake them up and get them kicking. If you don't have a candy thermometer and it's warm in your kitchen, give it about 15 more minutes and you should be good to go (but no guarantees!)

Okay, remove 1 C of your milk into a bowl and add your 1/2 C yogurt. Mix it well. You are tempering it. Add that all back into your crock and stir.. (If you want to add a little pure vanilla extract at this point you can.. I use 1 T, but really it's to taste)

Put the lid back on and wrap in a large, thick bath towel. You want it to be nice and warm and cozy! Again, you leave it alone. For 8 hours.




 After 8 hours, unwrap your present! SCOOP! (DON'T STIR) the yogurt into clean containers and refrigerate. Chill before serving.

all nice and thick!

scooped into containers

You don't wanna stir your yogurt because it breaks up the little bonds those cultures have formed. That's why even your store bought yogurt will get runny. You see the whey (the liquidity stuff) on the top, you stir it back in... now your yogurt's not as firm :( So, that's why you don't stir..

Now, you can filter your yogurt with a cheesecloth or coffee filter to separate the yogurt from the whey to produce a firmer (Greek) yogurt. Do that overnight and then you will get yogurt cheese! (kinda like a soft cream cheese).

To flavor your yogurt you can do whatever you want. I've been using freezer jams and berry sauces  I made, but you can use any preserves, jams, fruit sauces, fresh chopped fruits of your choice, just honey or cinnamon. Heck, you can use it in place of sour cream so why not mix in some taco meat and cheese! LOL!