Yoghurt making - chore or pleasure?

How to do it - recipe for yoghurt

Note that skimmed or low-fat milk can be used to make yoghurt as effectively as full fat milk. So can goat milk or sheep milk. However yoghurt made with full-fat milk will have a thicker consistency.

The other ingredient for yoghurt is, ironically, yoghurt. You need a shop bought yoghurt with live bacteria to kick-start the bacterial process. The yoghurt you buy as starter should be plain / natural (unflavoured).

Alternatively health-food shops and other stores sell 'yogurt starter' -  a bacteria rich melange to use in place of natural yoghurt in your recipe). These sometimes have flavours incorporated.

When you get in the routine of making yoghurt at home, you can use the last pot from one batch to start the next batch - although eventually you will need to buy another, as the bacteria lose their power.

To make the yoghurt, much the easiest way is to...buy a yoghurt maker! This is because the temperature at which yoghurt forms effectively is important, over a period of several hours, and it is not easy to control this manually.

If you don't want to buy a yoghurt making machine, the alternative method is to use an oven set to a very low temperature - you are aiming for a temperature around 43 centigrade (110 fahrenheit).

A third possibility is to put the jars in a pan of water heated on the stove on very low heat - if you have a thermometer you are aiming for a constant 43-45 degrees, and will need to add more water occasionally during the 5-6 hours required for the yoghurt to form.

Various other methods of maintaining a suitable temperature are possible - including putting the mix on top of your radiators / central heating boiler - but these are of course rather hard to control exactly.

Method

- Boil a litre of milk (this kills any 'non-yoghurt bacteria' in the milk), then allow it to cool to about 45 degrees. Don't start making the yoghurt before the milk has cooled sufficiently, because the heat will kill the 'good bacteria'.

- Now add the pot of live yoghurt and stir it in, then pour the mixture into the cups supplied with your yoghurt-maker machine or similar glass pots etc. and keep warm according to the method you have chosen.

- The process of yoghurt making takes 8-10 hours: too short and the yoghurt will be of a less thick consistency; too long and the curds and whey start to separate

- The yoghurt will last several days in the fridge, with any flavouring, fruit or sugar best added at the time of serving rather than straight after manufacture.