Yoghurt

I decided to make yoghurt since I eat quite a lot of it.

I reckoned that home made has to be better than shop bought as it wont have preservatives and so on in it.

It is sitting there now fermenting away.

I will post the results later.

recipe:

1 Litre of shop bought milk

2 Tablespoons of LIVE yoghurt

Heat the milk in the microwave for about 6-7 minutes until it reaches about 45 degrees. Leave to cool a little and add the live starter yoghurt. The reason I used the microwave and not a pot on the stove is that the milk tends to burn on the bottom if not constantly stirred and the microwave eliminates this.

Most people say to bring it to 80 degrees first and then leave to cool until it reaches 40 degrees, but this should be only for unpasteurised milk to kill any harmful bacteria. Shop bought is already germ free so I have skipped the initial boiling part.

I put the luke warm milk into a measuring jug and covered it with cling film.

I heated up a cooler box with boiling water and then put a towel in the bottom of the box.

I placed the jug in there and covered it with another towel.

I will leave it in the cooler (now a heater) box for about 4 hours and then put it in the fridge to set.

I am interested to see what happens as it is the first time I have made yoghurt.

Ok,so I made 4 attempts at the yoghurt. Each one failed, and I eventually found the problem to be maintaining the heat until the yoghurt set.

My final attempt was to make up 1 pint of hot milk, let it cool to 40 degrees and add the tablespoon of live yoghurt and put the milk into a thermos flask. I left it overnight and in the morning...1 pint of yoghurt. The thermos is a great way of holding the heat until the milk turns to yoghurt.

I will keep back 1 tablespoon of this yoghurt as the starter for my next batch.