cow milk yoghurt

How to make yoghurt from powdered milk

May 20, 2011by Liz Beavis

Youghurt is great for digestion and a nutritious food, but it can be a bit pricey. I have been in the habit of using Easiyo packets (as I explained here), which contain milk powder and starter culture, and that has been a cost saving compare to buying yoghurt itself, however I had also been wondering if I could make yoghurt using milk powder instead of buying the packets.

I finally decided to stop being so lazy and have a go at using milk powder to make yoghurt, instead of relying on the EasiYo packet. I had a large bag of powdered milk in the cupboard that I bought during the flood-crisis here over summer, so it was time to use it up. I have now made several batches of yoghurt using only the powdered milk, so I can report that it is just as easy and convenient, as well as being ridiculously cheap.

The good thing about the Easiyo kit is that it comes with two jars and a thermos. You can still use the jars and thermos to make yoghurt from milk powder, without having to buy the Easiyo packets. I also use the thermos and jars for making various raw milk cheeses, so its a very useful kit.

yoghurt

The process for making yoghurt from powdered milk is very similar to using the Easiyo packet. You can either use a starter culture, or you can sub-culture, which means using some of the previous batch to start your new batch. I use the second method to keep a continuous batch of yoghurt going as I finish one batch I start the next.

All you have to do as soon as you finish one batch of yoghurt, is make the next one in the same jar straight away, without cleaning it, so that the remaining yoghurt will inoculate the next batch. All I do is scrape out most of the yoghurt (for my lunch), tip in the powdered milk (1 cup to 1 L of water), mix in the cold water and pop the jar into the thermos as normal (see other post for instructions on using the thermos). After 8-12 hours the yoghurt is ready. You can also use freeze-dried yoghurt culture if you don't have any previous batch to start your yoghurt.

It took me a few goes to work out the right amount of powdered milk, but now I reckon just over a cup of powdered milk makes one litre of yoghurt at the consistency that I prefer, however it just depends how thick you like it, you may use more or less.

A 1 kg bag of powdered milk costs about $6 and I made at least 10 L of yoghurt out of it. That means that it costs about 60c a L, compared to the EasiYo packets at about $3/L each and the tubs of yoghurt at $6/L (although haven't bought one for ages, not sure on that one!).

Anyway, its very cheap and easy (I can't believe I used to waste time carefully washing out the jar!). I'm hoping that I will have the same success with fresh milk.

Do you make yoghurt? What's your method?