Annie eats: Homemade yogurt

Chinese yogurt tends to be thin, and almost all contain sugar. Eventually I decided to make my own, so I bought a Little Bear brand yogurt machine. My first machine was too hot, and I failed in my yogurt-making attempts twice, so I exchanged it. To my relief, I was successful with the second one. ^_^ My yogurt turned out to be good, as thick as the one in my German recipe book, and I can add whatever ingredients I want.

Yields 1000 mL

Ingredients
1000mL fresh milk

1 bag of live cultures

Directions
1. Boil the yogurt container for 1 minute or wash it carefully with boiling water for 1 minute. It should be very clean, free of all germs, bacteria, and oil. You might as well boil the spoon you will use to mix the milk and culture as well.
2. Buy fresh milk that's stored in the fridge, not the UHT ones from the shelf. The milk should not contain any additives, including sugar, preserves, or other ingredients.
3. Pour a little milk in the container, and add the cultures (1 small bag per liter of milk ), mix well, add the rest of the milk, put on the lid and put it carefully into the yogurt machine. Plug in for 8 to 10 hours, NEVER exceeding 14 hours. Go to sleep or work or whatever and then your yogurt is ready.
4. The yogurt can be eaten when it's done, still lukewarm, but the best taste comes after you leave it in the fridge to set for another few hours or overnight. So be patient.

Troubleshooting
If your yogurt doesn't turn out, right check the following:
1. Temperature. It should be 42 or 43 C
2. Whether everything is thoroughly cleaned
3. Whether your milk is fresh and additive-free
4. Whether your cultures are stored properly so they are still active (they should be stored in the freezer)

Note: Yogurt machines and cultures can be purchased through Taobao.

Sichuanese native and Chengdu resident Annie blogs about her adventures in cooking vegetarian meals, adapting recipes from around the world. Recently she has translated some of her favorite posts into English for GoChengdoo readers to enjoy. The original, Chinese-language version of this post can be viewed here. Photo by Annie Chen.

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This article was posted by Annie and published December 26, 2009

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Comments

- joe
  July 7, 2012
- Fascinating to see how the yogurt culture among the laowai spread around like bacteria. That yogurt machine for 40 kuai was the best purchase in Chengdu. Love it.
- tigerkuma
  July 7, 2012
- I use 50ml of store-bought yoghurt as a substitute for culture, which works just as well. UHT milk works fine. If you're not using low-fat milk you may as well be eating the awful yoghurt in the shops (ie. too much fat content in regular milk). Bought 40 uai yoghurt machine 5 years ago STILL GOING STRONG!
- merior
  July 14, 2012
- You don't need a yoghurt machine to make yoghurt. All you need is a vacuum flask which you probably already have and it will do EXACTLY the same job as a machine. And when it isn't making yoghurt you can use it for carrying other drinks. Either way, you can buy a vacuum flask for a lot less than a heat controlled yoghurt maker.
  Heat the milk until it is just short of boiling and then allow to cool until it is comfortably warm to touch (between 43 to 46 C). Pour it into a clean vacuum flask, add a tablespoon of live yoghurt as a starter, Replace the cap on the flask, give the flask a small shake to mix the yoghurt and the milk together and leave overnight (about 8 hours). I have made it on numerous occasions without the aid of a thermometer and never had a failure.... yet, touch wood.
- jane
  July 14, 2012
- Actually, you don't even need a vacuum flask — you can just do it in a metal container in the oven or wrapped in towels atop a heater (but that's probably better suited to the wintertime). But I still agree that, if you want to make yogurt regularly for more than one person, the 40 kuai machine is the way to go, given that the cheapest vacuum flask I've seen was still 20 kuai and holds probably only around 300mL. The yogurt machines come in 1L and 2L size and all you have to do is plug it in with the milk and starter overnight.
  @TigerKuma, I thought what everybody was trying to avoid with the store-bought yogurt here was the excess sugar and nasty runny consistency, not necessarily the fat. At least those are my aims.