Making Yoghurt: Part 3

Here is the promised yoghurt post. The last attempt at yoghurt-making was a great success, so I wanted to set out clearly how it was (finally) achieved in the hope that it might be useful for others (and myself, because I'm not good at making notes), especially those who don't want to buy lots of special equipment and who are still aspiring to that large house complete with Aga, or indeed airing cupboard.

I used:

Two pints semi-skimmed milk, direct from the milkman
A small pot of Yeo Valley natural yoghurt, direct from Sainsburies.
A bit of double cream that had been lurking in the fridge for a week
A fine Norwegian thermos flask (I'm sure an English thermos would be perfectly alright)
A square of muslin from Lakeland, as overpriced as I predicted
A large measuring jug
A whisk
A sieve
A medium-size bowl

1) I heated up milk until boiling point, then let it cool until I could just about keep my finger in it and count to ten. Any skin that formed was just picked off (even though I hadn't really sterilised my fingers).

2) While the milk was heating, I boiled a kettle and swilled out the thermos with boiling water before replacing the top. It might not be a bad idea to sterilise the whisk as well if there is water left over.

3) I put tablespoons of yoghurt in the measuring jug and mixed it the with cream. To be honest I'm not sure what difference this made, but it did come out nice and creamy.

4) When the milk was at the right temperature I added first a bit and then all of it to the yoghurt-and-cream and whisked it up.

5) The whole lot was poured into the thermos and left for about eight hours until the evening. Voila, yoghurt! As usual it needed a bit of whisking to incorporate the whey that has separated. This was left overnight in the fridge.

6) The next morning, I lined the sieve with muslin, set in over the bowl and poured the yoghurt in. The only problem was that I had a bit too much yoghurt for the size of muslin, so it made a bit of a mess and couldn't really be squeezed to help the liquid out. This was left in the fridge for a few hours.

7) During my morning coffee break (it's great that PhD students can work from home), I opened the fridge to find that most of the whey had strained off and that lovely thick yoghurt remained!

K and I agreed that this was easily the best yoghurt either of us had ever eaten.There were only two problems. Firstly, the amount of yoghurt produced was not actually that much for a litre of milk, but to make more I would need to double all the equipment. Secondly, it is a bit time-consuming and we are not sure if we can go back to eating shop bought yoghurt now!