making yogurt is so easy you can do it too!

Yesterday I was feeling particularly Harriet Homemaker and decided to make some yogurt.

Last time we were in Big Piney, I found the steal of a lifetime--a yogurt maker--at Green Pastures for $4. After assuring Dave and I that it worked, the lady gleefully took our money. And then, as we left, jubilant over our prize, she probably snickered, because, as I found out yesterday, the yogurt maker didn't actually work! However, I didn't know this until after my milk was scalded and cooling so I could put the yogurt-starter in. Okay, truthfully, the milk was more than scalded. But I pressed forward, undeterred, because I WAS MAKING YOGURT!

The books that I have read that talk about making yogurt say you can do it two ways. You can either put the milk in your yogurt maker's containers, turn it on and blissfully go about your day, sure in the knowledge that you can unplug it when your yogurt is congealed. Or, you can put your yogurt into glass jars and put them on a tray in your oven that has been heated to 200 degrees, turn the light on and let your yogurt sit in your warm oven until it is congealed. Since the yogurt maker (I now refuse to call it mine, because it betrayed me, even though I really should have plugged it in at Green Pastures to make sure she wasn't lying) was kaput, I had to go with the oven method. But hey, my yogurt was already in these handy containers, complete with lids! from the yogurt maker, so I wasn't going to dirty containers and jars. I just put the containers on a tray in my oven, preheated it to 200 and set the timer for 5 hours. It is very important to remember to turn the oven OFF after it has been heated to 200, because you don't want to bake your yogurt. You just want to provide a warm space to incubate your yogurt. I knew this. And I turned the oven off, (aren't you proud?) the light on and went about my day.

However, when my timer went off 5 hours later, my yogurt wasn't congealed. Never fear, I reminded myself. The Yogurt Expert who wrote the book says if that's the case, just re-heat your oven, set your timer and let it sit til it's congealed. This kinda reminds me of the kid who is going to sit there til his oatmeal is gone, now that I think about it. Anyway, Dave and I reasoned that if letting the oven reach 200 was good, letting it sit at 200 for a while was better. So we let it sit. And we went about our evening--dinner, Jed going to bed, some awesome crochet for me. After a while we turned the oven off. And then, about 9:30, we went to check on our yogurt before going to bed.

This is what we found:















Turns out that letting your oven sit at 200 is fine, IF AND ONLY IF you aren't using plastic lids on your yogurt containers.

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The "yogurt" had, in fact, congealed. So, this proves to me that it would have worked, if only I had done some very important things. Namely, a) not letting my milk burn and b) not leaving the plastic lids on while re-heating the oven and letting it sit.

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I cannot accurately describe the smell. Because I had used powdered milk instead of real milk, (yay for Economizing Connie!) it was a disgusting combination of burnt milk/pudding/melty plastic, with a dash of the coffee aisle in the grocery store thrown in for dramatic effect.

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Nor can I accurately describe the way it looked as I scraped it into the toilet today (yes, I just went to bed in defeat. I was too demoralized to deal with it last night). You'll just have to imagine it for yourself.