Homemade Yogurt

This past week, we tried making our own homemade yogurt.  It was well worth the effort!  It was delicious treat and so much more affordable than store bought.  We made a gallon on Saturday and it was completely gone by Wednesday.  Here is a link to the recipe we used. 

We did let our yogurt cure for longer than the recipe said. We tried an experiment and did it from 3-7  hrs (just because we're nerdy like that).  The longer we left it, the more firm it was.  I'd say 5-6 hour would do the trick.   4 hours was the right amount.  We also left it overnight once, and it turned out pretty sour.

I will also add that the Yoplait starter was THE BEST that we have tried.  I honestly wouldn't use any other brand.  After you get going, you can just use your homemade stuff for the starter.

We made the vanilla kind, with 2/3 cups of sugar, and then we added about a tablespoon of jam to a cup full to flavor it.  We used our strawberry and raspberry peach freezer jams we made over the summer.  It's seriously good, and after you get your own yogurt starter, it's the cost of a gallon of milk for a gallon of yogurt.  There's a link on the recipe that talks about how much the cost savings is a year.  If you ate four quarts a week (that's a lot, be we can definitely eat that much) you can save between $350 and $500 a year.  That's no small change.

Enjoy!