Homemade yogurt

Ingredients:

1 gallon milk (I use organic A2 milk) *must be cow’s milk

1 cup good quality yogurt (must have live active cultures)

Directions:

Add 1 gallon of milk into a large pot (I prefer stainless steel). Heat up the milk on the stove until it has reached 180°F.

Once the milk has reached 180°F, remove from the heat and let the milk slowly cool down to 115°F-120°F. This may take up to an hour.

As soon as the milk reaches the correct temperature, add in 1 cup of good quality yogurt and mix it in. It’s important that the yogurt has live active cultures or else your milk will not turn into yogurt.

Place a lid on the pot or transfer the mixture into a large container with a lid. Wrap the pot or container with a towel (so the mixtures stays slightly warm) and let it sit for at least 12 hours, or overnight. I like to keep the towel-wrapped pot in the oven with the light on.

After your milk mixture has sat for at least 12 hours, you should have yogurt.

I like my yogurt thick so I like to strain the yogurt before storing it. To do this, I take a large colander and place it in a large bowl. I line the colander with a linen towel or cheesecloth, pour the yogurt in, and let the whey strain from the yogurt for about an hour. I then transfer the strained yogurt into a sealed container and store it in the fridge. I either use the whey to make sourdough or feed it to my chickens.

Your yogurt will last in the fridge for 2 weeks. If you want to make more yogurt, make sure to save 1 cup of your yogurt to use as the culture for your next batch of yogurt.