Homemade Yogurt

I discovered the joy of making yogurt last year when I was having dinner at some friends' house. As you might have figured out, I am a huge fan of do-it-yourself and home made products, so you can imagine my delight when one of our friend's brought out a jar of home made yogurt. Of course I immediately asked her how she made it and using her recipe and some Internet research, I've been making my own yogurt since.

This is probably by far my favorite home made recipe!
It is so delicious and it is fairly easy to make.

Materials & Ingredients:
1 glass jar with a lid
(I use an old pasta sauce jar that has been thoroughly cleaned with hot water)
Crockpot
Damp towel
Thermometer
4 cups of milk (try not to use ultra-pastuerized or homogenized milk)
1-2 spoons of yogurt (any unflavored yogurt with active cultures will do)

Directions:
Place the yogurt in the clean jar.
Fill the crockpot with water and turn it on.
Heat the milk in a stainless steel saucepan until right before it starts foaming. I prefer to stir it (with a metal spoon) as it heats, because it makes the pan easier to clean, but it's really up to you. Definitely keep an eye on the pan though, because you don't want the milk to boil.
Remove the milk from the heat and let it cool until it reaches about 110 degrees (which is yeast's favorite temperature). You can stir the milk to let it cool faster or even use an ice bath if you prefer (although make sure you don't go below 110 degrees).
Once the milk has reached 110 degrees, add a little of the milk to the jar and stir to mix the yogurt and milk. Then add the remaining milk.
Stir and close the jar.
Take the temperature of the water in the crockpot. If it's close to 110 degrees, turn it off (alternatively if you have a crockpot that has settings, you can probably leave it on low...my crockpot doesn't have settings).
Place the jar in the crockpot and cover with a few towels (insulate the jar).
Let stand for about 8-10 hours (or overnight). During this time, try not to move the jar as this will disturb the yeast.


After about 10 hours, you'll have yogurt!
Refrigerate for a few hours then serve with granola, fruit and/or honey and enjoy! It will keep in the fridge for about a week.

The yogurt will not be thick like Greek yogurt.
If that is what you want, you'll have to strain it with a cheese cloth for a few hours. Personally I never have done this as I prefer the yogurt a bit runnier.


Modifications:
*If you use a smaller jar, just modify the amount of milk you use.
*You can use any type of milk you want. My most recent batch consisted of 1 cup of 1% milk and 3 cups of 2% milk. I have also made it with whole milk and a mixture of whole and 1% milk. Just remember not to use homogenized milk.
*If you do not have a crockpot, there are many other ways to incubate the yogurt. In Make the Bread, Buy the Butter, Jennifer Reese suggests turning on the oven until it's hot, then turning it off and placing the jar in the oven. You can also place it in a pot of water on the stove, although I would be careful not to overheat the mixture, because you don't want to kill the yeast. Others have used heating pads and yet others have used coolers with hot water. On a warm sunny day, you can probably just leave it out on your counter or in a warm spot.
*Alternatively, A Year of Slow Cooking has a recipe where you do the entire process in a crockpot.
*I have let the yogurt stand for as little as 8 hours and as long as 12 hours. Different sources have said different things, some saying to not let it stand longer than 15 hours, others like Michael Ruhlman actually say to leave it out 18-24hrs. The longer you leave it, the more tart it will become. I've always left mine an average of 10 hours, so that's what I recommend.