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A couple of days, whilst clicking around blogs that I like to read I stumbled over this post on evilsciencechick.com about making yoghurt. Making yoghurt sounds like loads of fun and will serve as a practice fermentation for my attempt at hobo wine over the next couple of weeks.

Now I should probably start out by mentioning that I have no idea how to make yoghurt, none of the equipment required by the recipe and no real clue why I'm doing this. I seriously don't even know what I'm going to do with over two pints of yoghurt. Anyway, common sense and logical reasoning aren't exactly my strong points so I took a trip to the supermarket today after work to get the ingredients:

The cast from left to right

• Powdered Milk: All yoghurt recipes seem to have powdered milk in them. It just sounds pretty gross to me. Ah well, who am I to argue with the experts?


• Honey: I chose german honey from a monastery just outside of Munich. That's just how classy I am (also the only honey I have sitting on the shelf). Perhaps I should have consulted with jim2 about what sort of honey to use. Oh well, too late now.


• Active Yoghurt: My yoghurt contains the following bacteria: lactobacillus acidophilus, bifidobacterium, streptococcus, thermophilus. I don't know what any of that means but it sounds impressive


• Milk: Comes from cows

The actual yoghurt making process goes as follows. Step one:

Sterilize everything! I just dumped all my implements into boiling water for five minutes. That should teach any 'bad bacteria' to keep out of my way.

Out of interest, what's the difference between bad and good bacteria? Sounds like the difference between terrorists and freedom fighters to me.

Secondly pour the milk into a saucepan then add the powdered milk (1 cup, I just eyeballed it) and honey (two tablespoons).

Heat the whole milky mess up to 140 farenheit. I don't have a thermometer so I used this handy hint from the evilsciencechick blog:

the milk had to be "scalded," but not boiling. (this is why it helps to read several recipes before you try something new). So I heated the milk until steaming, with tiny foam bubbles formed on the sides, but NOT to boiling.

That scalding should take care of any pesky terrorists in the milk.

Tip most of the milky stuff into a container. The original recipe suggests that you use a cylindrical plastic container. I'm not good with shapes so I just used a piece of tupperware (sterilized of course). Mix the pot of yoghurt thoroughly with the remaining bit of milky stuff and then add it to the tupperware container. The official yoghurt recipe now calls for some fancy stuff:
Place container into a narrow wine bucket, lined with a heating pad. Set the heating pad to medium. Let the mixture ferment for 3 to 12 hours making sure the temperature stays as close to 115 degrees F as possible.
Well I have neither wine bucket nor heating pad so I just chucked the tupperware in the oven and set it for 40 degrees.


So that's where I am right now, there is a (hopefully fermenting) tub of milk and sugar sat in my oven. Fingers crossed I'll have some lovely yoghurt for breakfast tomorrow and another of my glorious forays into the world of culinary science can be called a success.

My inner realist is reminding me that this is very unlikely to happen and something will go horribly wrong.