Making Dairy-sub yogurts and other cultures

[Sarah Cortes]

Cut n Pasted from my post on Heal Thyself FB page :

Opening post :    Well, I made 4 different kinds of yogurt. Soy milk, rice milk, cow
milk and almond milk. All with granular starter, which I've never
used before.  It is -yo'gourmet- freezedried yogurt starter.  It was a free sample. . After one hour of incubating all have begun to set up except
the rice, which I was iffy about anyway. Little to no... protein, which I
think is necessary to culture. Was/am iffy about the almond too. I
have made cow and soy milk yogurt before using a portion of yogurt as
the starter, the soy seemed to always (about 3 times) set-up runnier
or not at all.   We'll find out in the morning if it all turned out !

2nd post :

Well.... The only 2 milks I have ever made yogurt with before (soy and cow) are the only 2 that set-up. The cow is super sour and the soy kinda runny.
It's been a while since I made yogurt, but I think previous experiments
were leading m...e
to believe runny soy yogurt can be prevented by adding a little more
starter (in my previous and only other method, which used a little
yogurt from the previous batch as starter).
The only incubation method I have ever used is in the oven with the light on. The oven
insulates the heat coming off the yogurt and from the light just enough
to keep right temp, DO NOT turn the oven on.
I seem to remember thinking like rising bread, yogurt is sensitive to movement ? Can't remember for sure.  I made each variety of milk one after the other, I wonder if I moved it around too much sliding the tray around to put each one in the oven?
I also can't remember if I've ever made yogurt in my current oven (we
have a double oven, with a short oven on top (like a toaster oven, but normal
oven width), the jars might have been too close to the light ? A couple
of the jars seemed excessively warm when I pulled them out.
The rice milk just cultured and seperated into a white layer and a clear layer.
The Almond seperated into a marbel-y, curd-ely yuckiness. Both were
kinda too un-appatizing to taste much, but I think the rice was sweet
and the almond tasted like warm almond milk.
Hmmm.
Gonna try again next week monday, because a co-worker wants me to teach her how to make yogurt. 

I will report those results too ! Might not do so many varieties though,
that may have been part of my demise, though I used clean utensils for
each milk and each packet of starter powder called for 1qt milk (I used
1/2 packet per 2c. of each milk), some recipes just cant be split !
Oh well, maybe I'll find out .

[Aravinda]

Hello everyone, I am very happy to be part of this group. This is my first post, I hope I am posting in the right place. I looked at the list of 14 Steps for Healthy Guts and I did not see yougurt listed - I believe it is also a good source of probiotics? I would like to hear others' thoughts on that. I would like to start making kefir also, but right now yougurt is something we make every day.

It is very easy and you can actually just buy any plain yougurt in the store and use it for a yougurt starter. For best results, scoop out 1 or 2 spoons of yougurt and let the container sit for a while till the whey rises to fill the dip from which you scooped out the curd portion. Use that whey to make yougurt - just add a spoon or two of it to milk that has been heated and allowed to come to very warm but not too hot to the touch. Stir well and keep covered in a warm place (90-100 F is good). Humidity also helps. If the temperature is right, it will set in 4 hours, but up to 8 is normal and even longer is okay. It will be sour if it takes longer. If it is more than 16 hours though, I would reheat it and let the curds and whey separate (they will). Then you can taste and decide whether to eat them - I usually do.

[Sarah Cortes]

This article details one take on the numbers of bacteria in different food sources of beneficial bacterias :  http://heal-thyself.ning.com/profiles/blogs/whole-food-probiotics-101

 

I'm wondering where this list for a healthy gut is now!  I'm so surprised it didn't list yogurt.  Is it on the Heal Thyself website ?

[Sarah Cortes]

Well, I did help a co-worker make yogurt that following monday.  She is thrilled with her yogurt and brought me a sample the next day.  Turned out just fine with the granular starter, though I have no idea if the beneficial bacteria is as good as with regular, non granulated starter.   Hers was normal tartness though, I'm not sure why mine turned out SUPER sour !  I used homo/pasteur organic milk from a local dairy, she used Dean 2% milk.  Have not made yogurt since.

I did buy a  -Yogourmet- brand granular kefir starter I haven't tried yet.  Have been making kefir from grains for about 3 months now, trying to get the hang of that.  Started one of my first ferments, brined indian spicy beets (are brined veggies considered ferments?) I'm starting homemade ACV today, using a cheap standard filtered bottled apple juice and Braggs ACV as starter.  You know, I opened this cheap apple juice about a month and 1/2 ago and it's still not bad.  It came in a gallon jug, which some has since been drank, so I transferred to a smaller container.  It's STIL NOT BAD !  WEIRD!   I wanna try making kombucha soon too.  So anyway, I've been busy with that stuff and haven't made yogurt to update this thread.