Yogurt vs. Kefir

It's time to start some new cultured dairy!

Source: flickr

When we moved to Oregon, my precious Villi Yogurt and Water Kefir came along, too, transported carefully for over 1500 miles.  We kept them cool in an ice chest, then transferred them to a refrigerator at our temporary lodging here.  My dear husband cleaned out that fridge when we were ready to move into our home, and dutifully brought the yogurt and kefir into our kitchen, placing them on the counter.  In a box.  Under a bunch of stuff.  Where they sat, unnoticed, for 3 weeks.

Oh well.

Time to start again.

I'm not ready to get back into Water Kefir just yet (we have some busyness coming up in the next few months!), but it's time to ditch the yogurt from the grocery store and start making my own yogurt again.  Or is it?


I have always been pretty sold on the Villi Yogurt that I'd been making for several months, especially when I realized out how easy it is to make and how easy it is to thicken to a toddler-friendly consistency!  But I've been hearing some pretty fantastic things about a similar cultured dairy product called Kefir.  Here is a little bit of the relevant info:

• Kefir contains even more beneficial bacteria than yogurt does, plus beneficial yeasts.
• Instead of just passing happily through, like yogurt does, the good bacteria/yeast in kefir can actually colonize your digestive tract, fighting off pathogens and keeping your immune system in good shape.
• It was either given to Mohammad by Allah, or it was the Manna given to Moses and the Israelites in the desert by God.

Okay, that last one I'm not so sure about.  But I have put quite a lot of thought into switching to kefir.  In true over-analytical style, I came up with this friendly little chart showing all the things that are important to me in homemade cultured dairy.

I think we have a winner!  

Goodbye, Villi Yogurt, you have been a fantastic first cultured dairy.  Thank you, Melissa at Dyno-Mom and Laurie at Common Sense Homesteading, for your inspiration and advice.  But it is time to part company (with the yogurt, I mean).

Now I'm off to Cultures for Health* to scope out the Milk Kefir grains!

* Just to be transparent here, I've used Cultures for Health several times in the past, for my Villi Yogurt and Water Kefir grains (that I killed).  Their product, and especially their included instructions and tutorials are so good that I want to recommend them to other people getting started with home-culturing.  I'm also an affiliate, so if you click on the text link here, or the add at the top of the blog, I get a small percentage if you choose to buy anything from them.

What do you think about Yogurt vs. Kefir?  Have you ever made either one, and if so, what were your experiences with them?


Posted at Fight Back Friday, Homestead Barn Hop, Monday Mania, Fat Tuesday, Hearth and Soul, WFMW, Simple Lives Thursday, Pennywise Platter

"Special" Yogurt

Just to clear this up before any confusion arises, although medicinal marijuana is legal in Colorado, I am not spiking my yogurt with it.  Please do not think that when you read the title of today's post.

Today's "special" yogurt was named by (almost 3 yr. old) Einstein, who - happily - thinks that "normal" yogurt is supposed to be homemade, tart, and free of added sugar.  He discovered store-bought, sweetened yogurt a few months ago after enduring a particularly difficult haircut at grandma's house.  Grandma knew I would not be wild about him being offered a cookie as a reward, so yogurt was a good compromise.  At least it is cultured.  

Anyway, I was super inspired by the Blueberry Cream Cheese that Nikki blogged about at Project: Family Cookbook last week.  I, too, have fond memories of blueberry bagels with blueberry cream cheese at my favorite bagel shop in junior high and high school.

Fortunately, due to my recent yogurt mishap, I had plenty of curds hanging out in the fridge, waiting to be turned into something delicious.  Unfortunately, my curds weren't really as well-drained as I thought they were (whoops, they were sitting in a puddle of whey as I attempted to drain them), and not a very cream-cheese-y consistency.

So "special" blueberry yogurt was the answer!  There are several wonderful things about this:

• No packaging to toss.
• No trip to the store.
• No weird additives. 
• No sugar!
• The only ingredients are (slightly over-moist) yogurt curds and pureed blueberries!
• It tastes about 500x better than the stuff in the little plastic cup.

Now I just need to think of a difficult task for the kids to accomplish so they can be rewarded with this fantastic treat!  After all, I don't want them thinking this is how yogurt should taste ALL the time!  :)

Do  you have any "copycat" recipes that taste just as good as store-bought, but without the compromise in nutrition?

Posted at Simple Lives Thursday, Pennywise Platter and Fight Back Friday

Help!

I'm calling in all my favors (what favors?) today!  I need some expert advice, and I think this may be the place to find it!  Here goes:

Does anyone know whether, if I left my villi yogurt out on the counter an extra night, and it has turned into curds and whey, can I use the curds and/or whey to culture a new batch?  I don't want to have improperly cultured yogurt, from using unsuitable starter!

Anyone?  I may be heading over to Dynomom or Common Sense Homesteading here to request help - I know both Melissa and Laurie are Villi pros.

On a more positive note, my Water Kefir grains just arrived in the mail from Cultures for Health!  I didn't allow myself to order them until I had a good yogurt-making routine down.  Little did I know that my recent chicken fatalities would throw off my morning routine long enough to sabotage my yogurt-making!

I guess today is a day of questions - if you've made water kefir or kombucha, what are your favorite juices/flavorings to add for a second ferment in the fridge?


Posted at Monday Mania at The Healthy Home Economist

Yogurt Saga, Chapter 3

The last few days we've talked about making homemade villi yogurt at room temperature!  If you're new here and would like to catch up, cruise on over to Yogurt Saga, Chapter 1 to see the inspiration behind this latest yogurt venture, or Yogurt Saga, Chapter 2, to hear how easy it is to get started.

It worked!  Refreshing the dehydrated starter culture from Cultures for Health couldn't have been easier!  I checked on my yogurt every 12 hours or so, and after 48 hours, it was a lovely, semisolid mass!  Of course, that was just the starter (and only a 1/2 cup), so Phase 2 has commenced: making yogurt in quantities sufficient for family consumption.

This phase is also insanely simple: stir 1 tablespoon of yogurt into each cup of milk I want to culture, and leave it in a warm (70-78) spot for 24-48 hours again.

Since I had  1/2 a cup of yogurt starter, I went ahead and used it all to start 2 quart jars of (future) yogurt (8 Tbsp starter makes 8 cups yogurt).

When this yogurt is done culturing, I'll be able to use it to culture future batches, and so on.

So, what has this experience left me thinking?  I had no idea making yogurt could be this simple and painless!  Also, I am experimenting with abandoning the magical fermenting sock idea (one of my quarts this time around has the sock, one just has a towel over the mouth, with a screw band holding it on).  I found little pieces of black lint on the top of my yogurt after the last culturing period, and I don't know if eating lint is worth the sock method.  Laurie at Common Sense Homesteading really like the sock because she could put the jar in the sun and have the dark sock help absorb some heat.  But I don't have a sunny window in my kitchen at this time of year.  We will see if my towel-covered jar does just as well as my sock-covered one did, and if so, I think I'll give my husband his sock back. :)

Epilogue:
Update on the yogurt: it cultured beautifully!  It is not as thick as store-bought (which has gelatin and sometimes powdered milk added in to make it a solid mass), but the flavor is tangy/mellow and delicious.  The kids have been asking for seconds (possibly because they spill half of their "firsts" all over themselves).
And the towel-covered jar worked just as well as the sock-covered one, so the sock returned to its drawer where it will wait for me to find its partner in my giant laundry heap.

This post is shared at Simple Lives Thursday at GNOWFGLINS , Pennywise Platter Thursday at The Nourishing Gourmet, and Foodie Fridays at Designs by Gollum

Yogurt Saga, Chapter 2

A few days ago, we talked about villi yogurt (room-temperature incubation!) and my desire to give yogurt-making a try (again!).

Well, my dehydrated villi yogurt culture arrived from Cultures for Health, and I got started right away (as soon as I bought some pasteurized milk from the grocery store to make a "pure mother").  

It was so easy!

Step 1:

Pour 1/2 cup milk into glass jar (I used a quart jar because it is the first one I saw in my cupboard and I wanted to see if the sock would fit it for future batches.)

Step 2:

Stir in dehydrated yogurt culture.

Step 3:

Cover (in a way that allows the yogurt to breath) and put in a warm (70-78 F) spot for 24-48 hours.  Yes, this is a sock.  I got the idea from Laurie at Common Sense Homesteading and thought I'd give it a try.  The idea is to put it in a sunny spot so the dark fabric will help absorb some heat in the winter.  Note: if you put your yogurt in a sunny spot, make sure it is all the way covered, because sunlight sanitizes things, including beneficial bacteria!

Could this possibly be any easier?  No scalding.  No cooling.  No pre-warming the oven and then turning it off so it's warm but not to warm!

My waiting time is almost over, and I'll go check on my undisturbed yogurt starter to see how successful this super-easy process has been!

To find out if the culture worked, read Yogurt Saga, Chapter 3!

Yogurt Saga, Chapter 1

I used to think Yogurt meant Yoplait.  Plain yogurt was something "crazy health nuts" or "people who really like super-sour stuff" ate, and it had no place in my fridge as a child!  My grandpa tells a story about his college roommate from Albania who cultured yogurt under his bed in their dorm room!  According to said roommate, "Yogurt never goes bad, it just gets better and better with time."  That sounded pretty far out there to my Standard American Diet family, along the same lines as KimChi (rotten cabbage?) and sauerkraut (same reaction).

There was no appreciation for the lovely distinction between fermentation and rot.

Well, I've come a long way in my understanding of beneficial bacteria since then!  After digging into Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon Morell, we started eating plain yogurt as well as experimenting with sauerkraut, lacto-fermented dill pickles, and homemade fermented ginger-ale.  But making my own yogurt?  Scary!  Would I have to grow it under my bed?  

I have tried traditional yogurt recipes a few times, with the milk-scalding, cooling, adding of commercial yogurt, and then incubating in a warm place overnight.  It has kind of worked.  My house is cool, my oven doesn't have a pilot light that I can leave on, and my "incubated" yogurt has always turned out a little suspiciously stringy.  Not sure if that is okay or not.

Anyway, last week, I read an idea that revolutionized my life!!  Well, my yogurt-making life.  Laurie from Common Sense Homesteading described her Fermenting Sock that she uses to help keep her Villi yogurt warm in her cool house.  Huh.  Villi yogurt?  What's that?  Welp, a little trip over to Cultures for Health taught me that it's a type of yogurt that can be cultured at room temperature!  Room temperature!  No stressing over my oven temperature!  No expensive yogurt maker!  No keeping my yogurt in a cooler of hot water overnight (which is a good idea, I guess, but I can't leave it on the floor with my kiddos around, and I don't have any counterspace to spare for a cooler).  

One packet of Villi yogurt culture?  Sold!

Now, apparently, you're supposed to use pasteurized milk to revive the culture.  I plan to exclusively use pasteurized milk to make the yogurt, because the raw stuff is prohibitively expensive and I want to save it for drinking!  But we seem to be all out.  I am not willing to sacrifice my "good" milk for a yogurt experiment, so I will go get some dead milk at the grocery store and try to bring it back to life. 

Will the initial yogurt culture succeed?  Will I become a yogurt-making diva?  Or will I fall flat on my yogurt-making face?  Find out in the next exciting chapter of the Yogurt Saga!  (I know, I'm excited too!)

Want to know how the yogurt-making is progressing?  Check out the Yogurt Saga, Chapter 2!

This post is shared at Monday Mania at The Healthy Home Economist, Hearth and Soul, and Real Food Wednesday at Kelly the Kitchen Kop