Soy Yogurt Semi-Fail!

One of the food items I miss in a dairy-free life is yogurt. I had just really gotten into yogurt.  My favorite was Greek yogurt in a variety of fruit-y flavors.  And then there was granola mixed with yogurt and fruit. I love the sweetness of the fruit, the tanginess of the yogurt, and the crunch of the granola.  So great first thing in the morning.

Now I am trying soy yogurt.  The first time I made it in the Instant Pot it came out great.  This time, well, not so much.

This was the issue.  I looked up the recipe for Cold Start Yogurt in the instant pot.  When I made it before I made 64 ounces of yogurt and used 7 capsules of probiotics to inoculate the milk.  It worked great.  

This time the recipe I used said to use 1 capsule to 1 quart of soy milk.  So I did.  The first time I seem to remember the yogurt was set in about 8 hours.  This time I took the milk out of the refrigerator--maybe that was the glitch...the first time I had the aseptic pack in the cupboard so it was room temperature to start out...added the one capsule's contents, stirred, and started it going.

The next morning the yogurt was still milk.  So what do you suppose I did?!!!  I added the contents of three more capsules of probiotics, stirred it well, and put the yogurt back in the Instant Pot on the Yogurt setting.

You can see that the yogurt was now quite thick!  But separated.  I call that a fail.  I decided I would strain it (since it was already starting to separate...) to make Greek yogurt/"cream cheese".  That was an even bigger fail and I washed it down the drain.  

Maybe I will try again soon.  This time I think I will put some flavoring into the yogurt.  Maybe cinnamon and honey...?  I mean, why not fail big, right?!!

Munchie Monday: Instant Pot Cold Start Yogurt

Yogurt has been a part of our lives since early in our marriage.  With family cows in the barn we had PLENTY of milk to use up every day.  Since they were Holsteins, we had six gallons of milk a day to use up or waste.  Waste not, want not has been one of our mantras, even if the waste was spelled waist and the food eaten up and ending up on the waist of moi...which turns out to have been a bad idea overall.

Anyway,  I saw a note somewhere on the internet that you could make no-fail yogurt in the Instant Pot.  I had made yogurt a few months ago and it really was not that great. Well, it was okay but not ideal.  This new no-fail yogurt was cold start.  What could go wrong with that?!!

This is what I did.

In the scrupulously clean Instant Pot liner I put one-half gallon of  "ultra pasteurized" milk of any fat content.  I used whole milk. I figure Heavenly Father knew what he was doing when he made cows and their milk so I drink it whole, just not a lot of it.

After putting the milk in the stainless steel liner bowl I stirred in 3 tablespoons of plain non-fat Greek yogurt.

When I pressed the "Yogurt" button on the front of the Instant Pot the display read "8:00" for eight hours.  I walked away.

In the morning I noted that the milk looked like yogurt so I put plastic wrap on top and set the bowl in the refrigerator for 8 more hours to complete the solidification process.

After those eight hours cooling I moved the nice thick mild yogurt into glass jars.  There was just enough left over from the three jars to make a bowl of eating yogurt.

This recipe is a keeper, at least for me.

1 cup yogurt, 1/4 raspberries, 1 Tablespoon maple syrup

Same as above but I added one small banana and a lot of cinnamon

When I eat more yogurt with banana and cinnamon I will use honey for the sweetener instead of maple syrup...which is what we gave our children many times back in the long ago days when we had the family cows.