Homemade yogurt is a slightly unusual thing to make, and since yogurt is widely available, you might be wondering why in the world I bother. Here are a few reasons.
For starters, yogurt is a really inexpensive food to eat if it’s homemade. A quart of non-organic yogurt costs $2-$3 in my area, but I can make yogurt for $.50 a quart, which is a large savings. Four quarts of grocery store yogurt per week would cost me between $416 and $624 a year, and this yogurt(from milk purchased at $2/gallon) costs me a measly $52 a year.
You can even make yogurt from organic milk and save money. A $5 gallon of milk produces four quarts of yogurt, each of which costs only $1.25. Even if you pay $7 for a gallon of milk, a quart of yogurt made from that milk will only cost you $1.75.
If you usually buy individually packaged yogurts, making homemade yogurt will save you even more money.
In addition, homemade yogurt is environmentally friendly. The only trash (which should be recyclable) produced in this process comes from the original milk carton. The yogurt itself is made and stored in reusable Mason jars.
Lastly, homemade yogurt is delightfully natural. It has exactly two ingredients: milk and yogurt cultures. There’s no pectin, no starches, no guar gum, no colorings, and no preservatives. I love that. Despite the fact that it has no preservatives, an unopened jar will keep for at least a month in the fridge, and an opened jar will last for at least a week.
If you’d like to make some inexpensive, green, and healthy yogurt, check out my homemade yogurt recipe.
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I’m going to make this this weekend. I’m inspired by the picture!
Great post.. my wife buys individual yogurt cups for work. Hmm.. if those are $1 per each 6oz(?) container, then she pays roughly $21.33 (128/6 * $1) per gallon of yogurt! She probably consumes 2 gallons per month, so I could save at least $30 per month. Hmm… I think I will have to try this!
I used to make my own yoghurt years back, but I am inspired to start again after reading this
Do you have nutrition info?
thanks for this. i’ve tried the crockpot yogurt and found it super thin; yours looks amazing. i can buy whole milk in returnable glass jars, and starter yogurt in returnable ceramic crocks, so this is actually a no-waste recipe for me. gotta love it.
ok- I tried, twice. My cost ended up being $2.86 a quart. I had to buy starter because where I live I could NOT find a small cup of plain, and the kids had already opened the big quart. Even if I didn’t buy starter and bought just the organic milk it would cost $1.93 per quart. I don’t think the cost savings is worth it for as much trouble as this project was and I don’t even know if the 2nd time will turn out. Now that our local recycle will take the 5 plastics I think I might just stick to purchasing. Give me hope please… tell me to try just one more time:)
Say it isn’t so!
Are you comparing your cost to the cost of organic yogurt? (I hope not, because that might be resulting in your large cost for homemade.) I am going to give this a try today, but I’m only doing 2 quarts (the kids cracked open the gallon of milk this morning which I got for this). We don’t eat a lot of yogurt – only my husband and he only eats Yoplait ~ at almost 7 teaspoons sugar per 6 oz. serving! That’s over one teaspoon of sugar per oz.!! 27g sugar/4 = 6.75 (one teaspoon of suger weighs approx. 4g. I forsee lots of smoothies in our future – especially with all the homemade jams and jellies we have been given lately!
There are some other tips and suggestions at this site: http://www.kitchenstewardship.com/2009/04/13/monday-mission-homemade-yogurt-the-easy-way/
along with a very detailed set of instructions. She lets hers ferment in the cooler for up to 24 hours. I’m going to try Kristen’s method first and see how it turns out.
I’ll make mine, and you re-make yours, and we’ll meet up here again and tell each other how it came out. Okay? Okay. (my 6 y.o.’s new favorite thing to say).
Good luck.
I just made my own homemade yogurt last night. When we tried it this morning, we were pretty happy with it, overall. I was hoping it would be a bit thicker, but it wasn’t runny (about the same consistency as the purchased tubs of plain yogurt), so I think I can live with it. Thicker yogurt just makes for less mess when feeding baby! Also, the texture was a tad bit grainy. Any suggestions for that?
Made the yogurt yesterday with slight variation. As I was letting the milk cool, I went off in search of the cooler (Follows Directions: U). Seems the cooler is hiding, so I added more water to my pressure cooker, previously used to steralize the jars, got it to 120 deg., and let the milk mixture yogurtize in there. Too cold? Turn on the burner. After about 5 hours, I put it in the freezer for an hour, then to the fridge. This morning I checked it and it is yogurt ~ with no whey. No Way! I was going to use that to bake some bread with. Oh well. The kids say it tastes nothing like Go-Gurt ~ um . . . my point exactly. They won’t eat it yet. Maybe in smoothies?
Almost forgot to say THANK YOU KRISTEN. So far I am a yogurt makin’, bread bakin’, diner cookin’ MANIAC! I never thought I could do these things. Thank you so much.
This is absolutely brilliant. I have no acceptable jars as of yet, but this is brilliant.