Make your own Greek Yogurt
After reading several articles on yogurt making, Greek yogurt, to be exact, it seems the simplest method is the one talked about the most. One lady invested over $100.00 in a yogurt making machine and all the ingredients and came out with a "very costly mess"(her words exactly).
Anyhoo, what seems to work really well, and is just as good, if not better, and is definitely more budget friendly is good old store bought plain full fat yogurt.
I use Dannon; just make sure whatever brand you choose says it contains live cultures, as well as being made with live cultures.
Just line a large seive with coffee filters(the basket type...like for a Bunn or Mr Coffee). I used 3 filters...make sure they overlap and the seive is fully covered.
Then put the yogurt in the lined seive, and suspend over a bowl that is deep enough so that when the whey starts draining off, it won't touch the bottom of the seive. I let my last batch drain for over 24 hours and it came out like cream cheese...hence, the name it's sometimes called..."yogurt cheese". I poured off the whey about 4 or 5 times; the last time there was probably only a scant Tbsp of whey.
Now...the question is how to count it since the whey drains off, and it becomes more concentrated in fat and protein and supposedly the naturally occuring lactose drains off as well. There are some differences of thought on that, so I've decided to count my homemade Greek yogurt this way:
for 1/2 C
80 calories
3g fat
4g carb
12g pro
Any add-ins like berries or extracts, of course, will add carbs. I'm LOVIN' my yogurt again!!
(And, no, it's NOT an induction item, but would fit nicely into OWL once your CCLL has been determined.)
Here's a few pix of the yogurt that I just finished.(a 24 hour drain).
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Thanks...
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this. I'm looking forward to giving it a try - I really enjoy Greek Yogurt, but the local store is very hit and miss as to whether or not they have it.
This is the same method I
This is the same method I have been using, though occasionally I will make my own "regular" yogurt in the crockpot (and then drain it for Greek yogurt). What your readers might want to consider for planning purposes is that after draining (for approximately 24 hours or so - the time isn't critical) is that you are going to have about half as much Greek yogurt in volume as the regular yogurt you started with.
I appreciate your calculating the nutritional information. I've been a little concerned about that because I don't want to overeat and I wasn't sure just how to figure it (and the Greek yogurt is SO GOOD it's easy to overeat! :-)
I would certainly encourage the lady who spent so much money on yogurt making equipment not to give up. It's likely her mistake was a very simple one, like perhaps adding the live cultures when the mixture was still too hot (and thus killing them). But for someone who hasn't already invested the money, your method is likely the simplest and gives the best results.