homemade yogurt

Yogurt is good for you. It helps nurturing healthy bacteria that our body needs. Of course, besides the health factor, I do enjoy eating it. Unfortunately, buying yogurt regularly means creating many plastic waste. I do buy the 1.75 kg container instead of the individual one serving size and use the reusable container to pack my yogurt everyday, however, there is still another container to throw away. As a result, we've started making our own yogurt.

Surprisingly, it is very simple to make. If you don't believe me, try searching on the Internet "homemade yogurt" and you'll find lots of how-to info with pictures and videos and much much more.

What I'm going to journal here is our experiment on making yogurt.

First, we'll need a starter, and that I use some from my trusted yogurt that I always buy. When you buy a yogurt, read the label and make sure that the ingredient says it contains ACTIVE BACTERIAL CULTURE.

Second, get a litre of milk (buy those come in a bottle so you don't need to create another waste).

Third, an optional item according to our experience, is the powdered milk. Many recipes on the Internet says adding powdered milk will create a more solid texture. We've tried both with the powdered milk and without, and found the difference is minimal.

Choose organic ingredients if you can. When you think about the amount of hormones given to cows, buying organic milk/yogurt will become a natural choice.

Now is the process:

• Preheat the convention oven to 200C. When it reaches 200C, turn the oven off.
• Heat the milk on low heat (I use a glass pot) up to about 110C
• OPTIONAL: if powdered milk is used, whisk in half a cup in the warm milk. Make sure that you mix it really well in the milk or you'll end up having milk solid in the end product
• Turn off the heat, stir in half a cup of the starter (yogurt). Don't let the mixture temperature goes over 130C. Place the pot in the pre-heated oven. Let it stands for about 10 hours.

If you start making the yogurt after dinner time, you'll have freshly made yogurt for breakfast the next day. Of course, make sure that you keep the yogurt in the fridge after the 10 hours of curing.

Here are some of the ways we use our yogurt:

• blend with fruit and juice and you'll have a creamy smoothies
• add some blueberries (or any fruits) and you'll have a tasty fruit yogurt
• mix a spoonful of yogurt in the homemade salad dressing
• etc.

See "active bacterial culture" in the ingredient

This is how the homemade yogurt looks like in the pot

Time to enjoy the finished product!