Making Greek Yogurt Amongst Friends

When my good buddies asked about yogurt, I said, Hey, I know where to get some and I know who can teach you! They were stokednervous, but stoked. Both of them have InstantPots, and one pot’s maiden voyage was going to be in yogurt making.

I wanted to ease them into it, so I created a document of directions and FAQs that even included how long it might take to heat/cool their milk. I decided to activate the starter for them, so they’d have yogurt starter to work with after our lesson.

Here’s how it goesFirst, heat the milk slowly to 160ºF, and then cool to 110ºF.

Sprinkle the powdered culture from the silver packet on the surface, and let it sit a minute or two before stirring in.

Once mixed, pour it into the IP (or yogurt maker) and press the Yogurt button.

For activation, I set mine to 12 hours since that’s the max time it could take. Starting at the 5 ^th hour to check is crucial, so I set an alarm on my phone.

I also set an alarm for the wee hours of the morning, arbitrarily choosing the 10 ^th hour to wake up and checkthat equated to 5:30 a.m. Eek! But my friends were worth it.

It was done at 5:30 a.m.! I removed it from the IP and covered the top with foil. I let it cool on my ceramic countertop for an hour while I snoozed a bit more. About 6:30ish I woke to the alarm, and feeling that the pot was cool, put the pot in the fridge where it would sit for at least 6 hours. Then, it would be ready for the lesson. I labeled it so no one in my house would eat this brand new mother culture.

The rest for consumption went into pint size jars for easier fridge storage.

Beautiful Greek yogurt.

When teaching day came, we went through the process of heating and cooling the milk, discussing what-to-do and what-not-to-do as we progressed. I emphasized things like only using a regularly pasteurized milk (never Ultra) and how a dedicated IP seal for yogurt is a good idea. My other seal is brown and ucky-looking from other IP projects. And no one wants yogurt to smell like garlicky roast beef, you know?

Making yogurt is so easythe next step was to add ¼ cup of the mother starter to one quart of milk.

We put it in the IP, closed the lid, put the vent-thingie to œsealing, and pressed the Yogurt button. We adjusted the time to 8 hours since future batches are all just 5-8 hours in length. Since I was going to leave my friend’s house, she knew at the 5 ^th hour she could check and send me a picture.

I gave them supplies to continue on their own for yogurt making (and kombucha since we touched on this that day too).