Savor Dam wrote:The introduction of homemade Instant Pot yogurt in our household this year has been a huge success for Menolly, but her whey-straining process takes roughly as long again as the culturing process.
Longer. To reach the level of tanginess I like, I incubate the yogurt in the Instant Pot for 10 hours. That's after the 2.5 hour boil and cool down process.
I strain in to a pasta pot with it's steamer insert, lined with three flour sack towels for a full 24 hours. The pot is tall enough to keep the bottom of the yogurt from sitting in the drained off whey through the process. The yogurt pretty much results in labne.
I make two batches. One from a gallon of whole milk with a pint of heavy cream added; the other from a gallon of 1% milk, with a can of fat free evaporated milk added, and half a cup of milk powder. I get about 2 quarts of yogurt and 2 quarts of whey from each batch, after the 24 hour strain.
I like the whole milk plain, served with a sprinkle of Ceylon cinnamon and a sliced banana. As thick as it is, it is very rich. We also use the whole milk plain as a sour cream replacement. It works well for that, and keeps for about a month in a sealed jar. Open jars tend to turn after a couple of weeks. Great way to make use of milk that is about to expire in the carton. The stores here tend to mark milk a few days within the sell by date for half off. Really makes it cheaper to make homemade over buying store bought yogurt.
To the 2 quarts of strained 1% yogurt, I add a half a cup of white granulated sugar and 2 tablespoons of homemade (in the Instant Pot) vanilla extract. When I stir the flavoring in, the yogurt loosens and becomes a bit runnier. Then I jar 4 ounces by weight of the yogurt with a tablespoon and a half of Bonne Maman preserves in 8 ounce wide mouth mason jars for Dam-sel to take to work as a snack. SD gets 4 ounces of the flavored base yogurt in jars as well, but he flavors each jar with his own add ins.
The flavored yogurt keeps for about 10 days, with a little additional whey seepage, jarred this way. Then it starts to mold. Fortunately, it tends to be eaten quicker than that.
SD wrote:At the end, it's an entirely superior product to commercial yogurts...and the whey was a big bonus all spring and summer as a liquid fertilizer for both her tomato plants and Dam-sel's flowers.
*soft smile*
Linna Heartlistener wrote:SD wrote:At the end, it's an entirely superior product to commercial yogurts...and the whey was a big bonus all spring and summer as a liquid fertilizer for both her tomato plants and Dam-sel's flowers.
Ah, neat... so another use for whey.
and yay, you were growing tomatoes, Menolly...
What variety? (not that I know anything; I just keep telling myself if I ever grow something it will be tomatoes.)
Home-grown tomatoes are SOOOO much more amazing and wonderful compared to store-bought.
While the whey helped the tomato plants thrive, overall growing them here in the Pacific Northwet was a challenge. I think I transplanted them far too late from plants far too large. I got one usable ripe fruit, if I recall correctly, and lots of green ones I didn't harvest before it snowed. I was much more successful growing the tomatilloes from seed Stonemaybe sent me from Britain a few years ago in the Topsy-turvy.
I had a roma variety and a beefsteak variety, in Topsy-turvy planters hung from shepherd hooks. I'll try again, earlier, next year.
