Home-made Yogurt

Add yogurt/curd starter from sites such as Kasupi kai yogurt. This kind of starter is better than using store bought yogurt as a starter. Store bought yogurt can start a new batch, but it is not as pure as yogurt made from a starter.

This blue box will order one time. The other orange box is for orders every 8 weeks. If you make your yogurt as I do below, you do not need much starter.

Starting Yogurt/curd in a milk box

Pour an envelop of starter in a half liter or smaller box of milk. Shake it and ferment it in a warm place. You know the yogurt is ready because it is thick. Looking inside, you can see that it is no longer liquid milk.

Winter fermentation

I put the starter in a milk box with a plastic top. The bigger cap is easier to pour. When the yogurt in one milk is ⅓ full, I buy a new box of milk. Then, pour out a ½ cup of milk. In the new box, I add the yogurt. Take care to never touch the yogurt and to quickly close cap after pouring in the yogurt.

Ferment your yogurt in a warm bath.

To ferment the new box of yogurt, in the winter, I use the Japanese bath (ofuro). We use a foam mat to keep the heat in the water; to save energy. I put a pan on the foam mat. When the last person to use the bath (Multiple people can use a Japanese bath because we wash before getting in) gets in, that person places the milk box in the pan and closes the lid. By morning, the milk is thick fermented yogurt.

The quality of your yogurt

High quality yogurt is like thick gravy. The quality is higher than store-bought yogurt because nothing else is added to homemade yogurt. If I accidentally contaminate the yogurt by touching it or the inside of the cap, I have to start a fresh batch using the yogurt starter. I know that the yogurt is contaminated because it smells and also the creamy look is gone. There is liquid in the yogurt.

Freezing yogurt starter

If I leave the house for longer than a week, then I put the yogurt box in the freezer and use it again when I come back. At first the texture of that frozen yogurt is not as good as my fresh homemade yogurt, but it improves quickly after making several batches. It is not contaminated.