The Yogurt Sagas

On my new frontier of removing chemicals and preservatives from my diet, I have dreamed up the concept that making yogurt at home with organic milk is a good idea. I have my Betty-Crocker moments, so why not go for Dannon Diva? I looked up the instructions online and thought, how hard can this be. Milk, a double boiler, a thermometer, plain yogurt as a culture starter, and a heating pad. Check, check AND check.
I added water to the large pan, milk to the small and then floated the small pan inside the large and got the water boiling. The idea is to avoid scalding the milk by using an indirect heat source. So I've got my water boiling and then the thermometer in the milk watching it slooooooowly raise. Im thinking to myself that my hair dryer could do a faster job, but we don't want to botch this job and end up with an unforgiving pot of actually sour milk, instead of yogurt sour milk. Mentally I am rooting for the milk-- C'mon 180. 10.....15.....20....minutes pass and I am cruising at a temp of 176. Hmph.... My optimism and patience are slowly waning.
I figured the milk was done and removed the milk pot to the sink to sit in cool water until the milk reached 110. No problem on this one. Stir in 3 tablespoons of plain yogurt so the little yogurt critters can do their thing with the lactic acid and reproduce themselves in a new batch of milk. Then I put the pot on the heating pad and wrapped the pot in a towel.

Now wait 8 hours....... blahhhh.

Im so impatient that I keep peeking cautiously into the dark pot. This also gave me a little time to stop and ponder what I was actually doing and then panic struck. WHAT if this was a huge and horrible mistake, and when I open this pot after 8 hours what I find is NOT yogurt, but rather that putrid and pungent equivelant of a baby bottle that's fallen behind the couch and been missing for about 4 days..... the level of rank that causes the nipple of that bottle to actually suck itself inside? ....and then if you're foolish enough to open it you get blasted with a disgusting rotton milk bottle fart? My brain is screaming ABORT MISSION, ABORT MISSION, bail out NOWWWW while you can still pour it down the drain! Then the frugal side of me is arguing, you spent 2.50 on that 1/2 gallon of organic milk....are you really such a wuss that you're not going to at least see what comes from this...you can have 64 ounces of organic yogurt for 2.50 instead of 6 ounces for 1.29.

So on hour 6, I've had one nervous breakdown and a dispute with myself that could arguably be borderline schizophrenic. Doctor, one asprin please. Better make it 2.

After 8 hours of torture, I am standing in front of this pot revisiting the madness of it all and marveling the kind of balls it must have took for the person who saw the first naturally occurring yogurt in a clay pot someplace to actually try it.

I popped open the pot and peeked in. There's liquid on top , and the solid stuff appears to be FLOATING..... Good news in this was that the horrid smell I was bracing for wasn't there. It actually smelled, well.....yogurt-y. I scratched my head and thumbed through my directions. Okey dokey....it says to stir, then refrigerate over night. More waiting......great.

to be continued......