homemade yogurt

Yesterday I spent most of the day thinking "what am I going to do with this milk? The sell-by date was yesterday... it's going to be bad any minute now!" I didn't feel like baking, didn't have the patience for tapioca pudding... a few google searches later, I came up with an idea that not only excited me, but also terrified me.

Homemade yogurt. Yogurt is alive. Do I really trust myself not to poison my entire family?

I figured I'd give it a go.

I found several recipes online and tweeked them to fit what I had on hand.

CROCKPOT YOGURT

you will need:

Milk. You can use nonfat, %, or whole, depending on what you have in the fridge and what you want for yogurt.

Yogurt. An individual serving size container works well. Plain is the most obvious choice for flavor, but I used vanilla and it came out just fine. It must have live active cultures!

I had about quarter of the carton left in a half-gallon that was about to expire, so I added some milk from a new carton. And I only had vanilla yogurt, so it had to do.

 

 

Pour the milk into your crockpot and turn it to low heat. Leave it for about 2.5 hours.

 

 

 

After 2.5 hours have elapsed, turn the crockpot OFF. Leave it on the counter like this for about 3 hours.

 

After 3 hours have elapsed, uncover the milk and stir in the yogurt. Replace the cover, and leaving it off and/or unplugged, wrap the entire crockpot in a large bath towel.

 

 

 

Leave it like this for 7-8 hours. After seven hours have elapsed, you can check the consistency of the yogurt.

 

And the, TA-DA! You have a ton of yogurt that cost WAY LESS than buying it in the store.

 

I was able to fill an empty quart yogurt container, as well as most of a pint container.

 

And here's the best part... it is without a doubt the BEST yogurt I have EVER tasted!