Monday, January 07, 2008

Easiyo

I bought a yogurt maker from Julian Graves, the nut shop. Brand is "Easiyo". It's a 1 litre plastic container in to which I pour a pint pot of UK double cream, the rest of the volume I fill with some milk to provide lactose for the bacteria and water to keep it fluid for pouring. About 50:50. The yogurt maker itself is a plastic insulated flask which has an internal shelf and a mark. You fill it to the mark with boiling water, put in the yogurt fermenting container, which then sits on the shelf, pop the lid on and wait. I decant it in to fully waterproof sealable food beakers after three days. Shake it first. I leave it at room temperature. I have a production line but mostly it gets eaten within 7 days. I use Total brand Greek yogurt as my starter culture. It will do about six batches before becoming contaminated and starting to produce alcohol. My kitchen is loaded with a yeast since I tried some lactofermenting of rye flour, to see if I could tolerated home fermented sourdough rye bread. I can't. But it was nice trying.

You get a layer of cheese inside the top of the lid and around the top of the yogurt container screw thread. I clean this off with a tissue and scald the lid with boiling water between batches. I don't clean out the container as this is the source of bugs for the next batch. Until a yeast gets in that is, then it's a re-start after a mega sterilisation.

I like the taste, my wife doesn't. I guess it's acquired and I have the driving need for calories. Access to raw dairy is quite difficult in the UK (though far from impossible) and fermenting the cream appears to un-pasteurise it.

Peter

11 comments:

Cheeseslave said...

I heard that you could get raw dairy in the UK. I thought you could buy it in stores. Is that not true?

I enjoy reading your blog!

Ann Marie

Peter said...

Hi Ann Marie,

Farmer's markets and direct from the farm only, my nearest farm is about 30 miles away, so yogurt it is... Possibly once used to be available from the milk-man but I'm going back a long way there!

Peter

Lee said...

Excellent blog, Peter. We have a Julian Graves in my town, Cirencester, so I will try out the Easiyo yogurt, hopefully this weekend. Do you just put a few tablespoons of Total in with the cream, milk and water and mix it up?

Lee

Peter said...

Hi Lee,

Yes, about half a 150gm pot does the first batch nicely. I had a melt down a week or so ago with contamination but the current culture has an excellent flavour. It does seem to vary from batch to batch!

Peter

.^ said...

I dug up this old post because I wanted to see what your recipe was.

I've done a bit of on-line research and it seems that much the same thing can be done with cultured buttermilk as the starter and just an ordinary glass jar.

The proportions vary wildly in the recipes I've seen, so I'll start with about 3 parts cream (35% fat) to 1 part buttermilk and see how it goes.

If you happen to see a small pottle of creme fraiche at the supermarket I'd be interested to know if it tastes similar to your homemade concoction.

Peter said...

Hi Chainey,

I'm currently mixing 1 pint UK double cream with enough Jersey milk to make 1 litre and using a yogurt culture. Working well. It's a bit addictive. Once I start sipping it... Mouthful of chocolate, sip of cream, sip of decaff coffee. Mmmmmm

Peter

Anna said...

I've been making coconut "milk" yogurt with a big spoonful of dairy yogurt for the culture, and a teaspoon of honey or maple syrup to feed the bacteria. It's quite good.

Peter said...

Hi Anna,

Sounds very interesting. Perhaps time to experiment!

I did try to use coconut oil in my cocoa but it wouldn't emulsify. Melted butter, mildly clarified, would mix nicely and was nice, but not as convenient as cream from the pot...

Peter

Anna said...

My experiments yield a somewhat runnier yogurt than with dairy dream or milk. Great beverage/smoothie consistency, though we also pour it over fresh strawberries, too. The solids do separate out a bit from the liquid, but the solids aren't cohesive enough to strain them, so I just mix it all back together.

I've made it with the coconut milk straight rom the can without issue, but the original directions I followed instructed to heat the coconut milk to 125°, then cool to 110°F before adding culture slurry. I couldn't tell the difference. Though the heating does elmusify and mix back in any coconut cream that might have separated out in the can.

Next I'll try making coconut milk yogurt with some homemade coconut milk, now that I have a nifty coconut grater. Would like to ditch the cans, plus with homemade, I have all the dried grated coconut meat leftover for baking, etc. 1 mature coconut = about 1 can coconut milk + 1 bag dried coconut, sort of like a buy one, get one free.

M said...

Just as a hypothetical question: when making yogurt at home from coconut milk one needs to add some honey because although coconut has some natural fructose it's not enough to feed the bacteria, right? So, hypothetically, could one make "yogurt" from just one yogurt (for the bacteria) and water with honey, to feed them? Would one get a pro-biotic beverage, or considering that alcohol is just fermented sugar would one end up with an alcoholic beverage?

Mashhood said...

I'm very fortunate to be able to get raw milk from straightfromthecow.co.uk. I have lactose intolerance but can drink litres of raw milk without a problem due to the presence of naturally occurring lactase and Lactobacillus strains.