Let’s make yogurt
Sous vide lets you do more than you might think.
If you have a sous vide device, you have an easy source of yogurt, if that’s your thing.
The only ingredients:
- Milk: a bit less than a quart, let’s say 3.5 cups
I’ve only used whole milk; others might work too. - Plain yogurt with live cultures: 2–3 tablespoons
Use one you like the taste of, since you’re going to be cloning it, sort of.
These amounts are tailored for the quart jar I used. You can scale up or down as you see fit.
If you aren’t familiar, yogurts with live and active cultures (sometimes labelled “probiotic”) are pretty easy to find in a supermarket, and they’re generally labelled well (and are more expensive).
They taste a lot more yogurty — tangier and more sour. Ideally, pick one that lists nothing but milk and cultures in the ingredients; we don’t need any stabilizers or fillers.
The bacteria in yogurt needs a warm-but-not-too-warm environment in which to thrive. Sous vide is perfect for the task because its whole job is to maintain a constant temperature, and at 109° our bacteria is going to be really active, turning our milk into yogurt in no time.
Of course, “in no time” is a relative term — once you put your jar in the sous vide bath, you’re going to leave it alone for at least 5 hours. If you want it to take longer, you can just leave it on the counter at room temperature, but for the sake of the recipe I assume you want yogurt today.
Step one (of three): Scald the milk
Prep the milk by bringing it up to 180° F on the stove; scrape the bottom with a spatula ocassionally to make sure nothing’s coagulating on the bottom.
Once you hit 180° turn the heat off. (You don’t need to stress about this— if you go over, nothing bad is going to happen.)
Now cool the milk off, to at least 109°. If you’re in a hurry, you can stick the pot in an ice bath, otherwise, just wait.
Step two: Add the starter
Put your starter yogurt in a big bowl, and add a bit of the cooled-off milk. Stir or whisk it until they’re well combined. Add the rest of the milk and stir to combine.
Transfer the mixture to one of those mason jars you surely have lying around, and seal it.
Step three (of possibly four): Cook it
Set your sous vide bath to 109° F, and put your jar in it.
5 hours later, take a look. The milk will have become a solid-ish mass in the jar, with a cloudy liquid around it. The liquid is the whey, the mass is the yogurt. It should be one of the whitest things you have ever seen.
At this point you can either stick the jar in the fridge and be done, or you can go the extra mile.
Step four (the optional one): Strain it
Get a big bowl, and put a strainer over it. Line the strainer with two layers of cheesecloth (or high-quality paper towels, or a clean dish towel) and transfer the yogurt from the jar into the strainer.
Put the bowl in the fridge and let it sit for a few hours. It’s up to you how long — 3 hours is good; 5 hours might be better. The longer it sits, the more whey is going to drain, and the thicker your yogurt will be.
At some point, you’ll get around to tasting this thing you made. It will be tart, it will be sour, but dang if it doesn’t taste like some of the best yogurt.
Do what you will with it — top it with honey and granola, stir in jam and fruits, turn it into frozen yogurt.
Save a little bit of it to make more yogurt.
(PS: Like anything homemade, your yogurt has a shelf life, so be on the lookout for indications that things you don’t want to be living in your yogurt are living in your yogurt.)
