My dear and local friend Christina submitted this tip for the Weekly Kitchen Tip series:
I thought of a kitchen tip that I use quite a lot that perhaps others have not thought of. I heat milk for pudding or yogurt or …. in my slow cooker on low! It requires no stirring and never scalds or leave me with a difficult pot to wash. I love cooking tapioca pudding this way, and lately I have been making yogurt, which would be an ordeal without the slow cooker.
And she also added this question:
Does anyone know of a good yogurt maker to recommend? My mother used to have an 8″ round heating pad she put under a pot that was wrapped in a towel. As a space saver, this seems useful. An entire appliance to store when not in use for something that only maintains 90 degrees seems ridiculous to me. To make an entire appliance worthwhile it should hold at least 1/2 a gal, heat the milk to 150, then click off to let it cool, holding the milk at 90 degrees, with a timer to start when the starter culture is stirred in. Any better ideas?
If you have suggestions for Christina, please add them in the comments below and I will make sure she receives them. Thank you!
I would like to share what you know with the great and inspirational readers of gnowfglins.com. Send your favorite kitchen tip(s), accompanying photos, and your website address (optional) to: tips at gnowfglins dot com. You’ll be credited as the author/owner of the information submitted. Please understand that I may not post all tips. By sending me your tips, you are granting me permission to include them in gnowfglins.com publications. Of course, you may revoke your permission at any time.
Thanks for the tip Christina. I wonder if it would also help my husband not scald his cream of mushroom soup…
Kate, I’m almost certain it would be good for that. If you figure out the timing of it, please come back and share. This works great for keeping apple cider warm during the holidays, too. I learned that from my mom-in-love.
Elena asked how I make yogurt in my slowcooker. Well… I warm the milk in my slowcooker all afternoon on low heat. Then at dinnertime, I check the temperature to be sure it’s well over 120 degrees. I take it off the heating element to cool. After the children are in bed I stir in about 1/4 c. fructose per Quart and a dribble of vanilla with the yogurt start. I turn the oven on warm for a few minutes and leave the crock in there overnight. Because it cools off overnight, it turns out more like Kefir, but yummy kefir so its okay. Last night I happened to be up around 1 a.m. So I turned the oven on warm again for a few minutes and this morning it looked perfect! Not that we let it cool and set up. No, we ate it right away with sprouted wheat, pecan pieces, shredded coconut and date pieces stirred in! What is left is thick and creamy though
A pilot lite would really help, I’ve thought of leaving a candle going in the oven, but that would add to the expense and bother of finding unscented candles…
-Christina
Someone wrote the suggestion of using a food dehydrator. At first I was confused because my dehydrator has many trays with holes but then I remembered that my mother’s is like a little microwave, so I bet that would work for incubating the yogurt. Thank you for that suggestion
Thank you, Christina! Your warm yogurt breakfast sounds so delicious! I know your yogurt making method is going to be very helpful for many people. Thank you for taking the time to share it here.
[...] another tip from my friend Christina (who shared her fool-proof method for warming milk a few weeks ago). We love having fresh baked dinner bread every night at dinner. If I [...]
Hi Wardeh!
I figured out how to make perfect yogurt without buying more appliances!
I heated the milk then cooled it in my crock pot. I stirred in the yogurt, fructose and vanilla. Then I placed the crock in my electric 12 qt. roaster pan with water in it, that had been pre-heated to 120F. I put the crock pot lid on (upside down to fit), then the roaster lid on. I checked the temperature of the milk again and turned the roaster on for 5 minutes.. Then I unplugged the roaster and covered it with an old blanket and left it overnight. This morning it was perfect! This would probably work well in a sink full of very hot water with a sheet pan holding up the blanket. Or quart jars could hold the milk in a regular crockpot.
Next I want to try draining the whey in my milk strianer to make greek style yogurt.
I searched online and found that someone made yogurt in a crockpot by turning it on for 10 minutes of every hour.
There were suggestions for keeping quart jars warm in a styrofoam cooler with hot water and a blanket over it.
Someone else suggested keeping the pot of milk over a heating pad on medium with a blanket over it.
Anyway, I have been wishing for a good way to make a family sized batch of yogurt for years now, and am excited about this discovery.
I hope this helps other families as well.
Blessings, Christina
Yes, this is wonderful! I will point people to your comment so they can see your solution. Thank you!
[...] Christina shared her tip for warming milk in the crockpot, she asked for tips on yogurt making appliances. It would appear that she found a way to make [...]
Hi Wardeh,
I just have a question about warming the milk, do you know what size crockpot was used?
I would like to try her yogurt recipe too.
thanks,
Shari
oh and also, how much milk??
thanks,
shari
I often make yogurt by following the basic directions of heating and cooling then placing it in a large thermos and wrapping in a wool blanket and leaving it all night. It turns out perfectly everytime.
Shari, I will have to ask Christina. She’s so good at writing back that I’m sure we’ll hear very soon!
Hi Everybody!
I was low on starter the other day, so I put my little starter in a pint jar, filled it up with heated milk and put it in a warm crock pot full of water and a towel on top. I’m not a very systematic person as you can tell!
I use the crock pot I have and I pour in how much milk I think I can spare, or even the whole gallon! I think we use all the yogurt within a couple days no matter how much I make
What I have figured out for sure is:
-1-2 Tbs. starter per quart of milk
-1/4 c. sugar and 1 tsp. vanilla per quart is good for sweetening
-stir the sugar into a little warm milk and disolve completely before adding to the yogurt, but be careful not to cool the batch.
-I have better success leaving the yogurt to set overnight as children running by jiggling it turns out strange results!
My friends have said:
-stir in a little powdered milk if you want less whey (liquid) in your final product (perhaps 1/4 c/quart of milk). I havent actually tried this yet.
-carefully heat raw milk to just 110F then add starter and insulate for added enzymes ( my 1965 book says not to do this, I have not tried this either)
-My little old book also says don’t add too much starter or it will become lumpy.
-Traditional methods I heve read about leave the yogurt to set in a straw lined box near the wood stove.
Anyway, I hope that answers all questions and more!
-Christina
thank you so much Wardeh and Christina. Can’t wait to try this!!!
love
Shari
This sounds very interesting! I make lots of yogurt for my family, but I did purchase a ‘Salton’ one quart yogurt maker (Amazon.com aprox $15). It is a very simple appliance that is no-nonsense and easy to use, it’s also small and doesn’t take up a lot of cabinet space. So…if you get a hankering to purchase one, I would highly recommend a smaller inexpensive one, they do the job just fine. Only drawback in my opinion is it doesn’t have a timer, which I would like. So, I have a wall timer (like the ones you use for Christmas tree lights) and that works perfectly.
i have just begun my first batch of homemade yogurt. i used quarter cup (4 TB) of organic plain yogurt and 2 quarts of organic kilk (i was able to find some local stuff that wasnt ultra-pasteurized. i hope to find some raw milk in future!)
after heating and cooling the milk and adding the yogurt, i put it in my large dehydrator at 95 degrees. im not sure if this is the right temp to keep it ‘warm’! i plan to turn it down to around 80 after the second hour.
i am curious if christina ever strained for the greek style yogurt and how it turned out?? i would imagine it yields quite a bit less yogurt?
i have heard that you can save the drained off whey and use it in recipes in place of water (especially in breads) as it has a lot of healthy riboflavin.
i am also curious as to what type of milk christina uses here locally, and if she always uses started from her last batch or if she purchases new commercial yogurt for started sometimes. i read that you can only use the homemade started for about 4 batches…?
lastly, i was under the impression that heating the milk fully was to sanitize it. so thats probably why christina had conflicting advise on it? on the one had it is ’safer’ on the other hand, more enzymes are destroyed!
thanks christina for sharing your expertise, and thanks wardeh for providing the space for us all to discuss it!
That’s great, Gabrielle! I emailed Christina and asked her to stop by and take a look at your questions.
Hi Gabrielle- How did your yogurt turn out at that low temp? Closer to 100 is what I remember being the recommended temperature, maybe 95-105. I would check in a book, but we just bought a house and are moving, they are all packed!
In fact I have forgotten some details now, I did strain some yogurt that came out like cream cheese. How thick it turns out is determined by how long it strains and how much pressure is applied: I line a colendar with a dish towel, let it strain untill I can gather the cloth at the top, wrap a rubberband around it and hang it from the sink faucet to drip overnight.
Presently I have a dairy goat, recently I have purchased milk from Costco for cheapness, and in the past I have kept track of the expiration date for organic milk at Safeway so I could show up on the day of clearance prices and buy it all to freeze. If you do that remember to open each container and pour a little out so it has room to expand
The milk gets heated to cause a chemical change that helps it to turn into yogurt or cheese, again its in my packed books…
I generally use fresh starter, recently I found a website that recommended a specific yogurt start for making raw yogurt thick, let me see if I can find the address…nope, I’m using my husbands computer and it doen’t have my favorites in it, hopefully I can find that site again someday.
Happy yauging everybody!
thanks christina!
do you make goat milk yogurt now? how does it compare?
i thought the dehydrator would just help the yogurt maintain the heat it already had and i didnt want it to get too hot but i ended up keeping it around 100 for the duration because my kitchen was quite cold last night (i refuse to firs up the pellet stove in may!)
it turned out well. i did some regular and then drained the whey from the rest. that greek style was greatly reduced in volume but boy was it superior! sweeter, much thicker, creamier, etc. and the whey wasnt waisted- i put it into a batch of whole wheat bagels and it gave them a nice sourdough like tang.
but i sort of ruined everything when i decided to stir in a little fresh raw honey (i was blessed with some fresh from the hive by a friend this morning!) and a dash of vanilla. the stirring after it was set turned it into a very thin milk like consistancy : (. so we drank it instead of using a spoon!
i will keep practicing. wardeh has an ad right here for a place that sells cultures that can be stirred into cold milk and they offer a special thick style. my own was nearly cream cheese consistancy so im sure you could make a marscapone out of this other stuff.
thanks again!
Gabrielle – I refuse to turn on our pellet stove now, too! Strange that we could use it in May. Naomi told me the other day that she would pay me $100 to turn it on, she was so cold. Tempting.
But no.
I’ll be back to pore through yours and Christina’s methods when we have more milk to turn into yogurt. I’m really glad the two of you are sharing so much – it will be helpful for so many!
i thought i would let you know how my second yogurt makng went…
i was able to use a bit of the first batch to culture the second. at 110 in the dehydrator for 7-8 hours, it set up very nicely. this time i added just a bit of agave at the beginning so as to avoid stirring away the thickness after it set.
but somehow, it is all quite tart- even more tart, it seems to me, than the original unsweetened batch! maybe its because i used my own culture instead of commercial. also, i think the agave was ‘eaten’ by the culture (similar to kombucha) because there is no trace of a taste of it.
i made one regular and strained one batch for thicker greek style. i strained it a little too long and it is VERY thick. it is a tart cream cheese. with a little salt added it would make a nice salad cheese like feta or fresh goat cheese. very smooth and creamy.
the regular is a little lumpy and not commercial-yogurt-smooth, but definitely thicker than last time. there is a little whey separation, but im resisting stirring it. we just stir up our own portions in our own bowls.
my kids are a little resistant as it is tarter and not as nice a texture as they are used to. but since i am making this homemade live culture organic yogurt for $1.25-1.50 per quart as opposed to 4$ per quart for nancys live culture whole milk plain yogurt, they are just going to have to get used to it!
for those with an excalibur (large) dehydrator, i definitely recommend this method for ease. but it sounds like christina has it down pat without using a dehydrator or other special device.
wardeh, it was so hot yesterday that we were ready to set up a bed on the deck as we do each summer. but today it is so cold i had to put on thick socks this morning!
Gabrielle – you’re killing me! I’m dying to join in the fun and make yogurt, too! Our two goats are giving us 1/2 gallon of milk per day between them and that’s not enough yet to have extra for yogurt.
I love hearing how much money you’re saving. I think I would really like your yogurt, as I love tart yogurt. I think it is my Middle Eastern upbringing – tart and salty! Yumm… I think your kids will adjust over time.
I ordered a culture from Cultures For Health – I can’t remember which one – and it doesn’t need a heat source at all. I wanted to do the Greek style (because that is the one of my upbringing, I’m sure) but that is the only culture that requires heat. Once I get it going, I’d be happy to share some with you for your kitchen experiments!
That is so cool that you set up a bed on the deck! My kids would love that.
wardeh- you have quite enough excitement to be getting on with for now!
i think you can make a greek style (thicker, creamier) with your new culture. just follow directions and when its all cultured and ’set’, spoon it into a colander lined with a couple of layers of cheesecloth and place over a bowl to drain a few hours (in the fridge). the longer you drain the thicker it will be.
this makes a lot less yogurt, but you can use all the whey. in fact, i am making all the yogurt this way now because i love using the whey in bread products. i made some without and it seemed flavorless. the whey makes such a nice tang.
i am trying to catch a wild yeast for a sourdough starter (a la the current issue of above rubies) but if it doesnt work out, i will be ordering from cultures for health so will probably get a yogurt start to try as well. so be sure to let me know how you like it!
my son max has a bit of a dandruff issue which may (or may not) indicate a yeast issue. one of their yogurts is supposed to be good for battling yeast, so ill probably try that one…
gab
ps- if you are wanting to salt the yogurt a little, i would think you would want to tir it in before culturing. however, it might interfere with the culture. so you will have to experiment and let us know.
[...] comes to us from Sonya, who shares how she makes coconut milk yogurt. Thanks, Sonya! Following the tip on warming milk in a crock pot, I pour two cans (14 ounces each) of whole coconut milk (not lite) into a crock pot and turn the [...]