Dear Mamta

I've printed out your recipe on how to make yoghurt. For this, one needs starter culture, aka live yoghurt. What is this, and how does one get a hold of it?

Phil

i used to make yoghurt all of the time and i know you can buy starter cultures but what i did was used a heaped tablespoon of thick natural greek yoghurt and it worked a treat. then all i did was took a tablespoon of that to create the next batch and it went on and on.

most supermarkets sell live yoghurt, just look at the labels.

'Live' refers to the lactobacillus bacteria, of which there are many different kinds, so pick one you like. Let them warm up to room temperature, feeding them a little milk.

OK, thanks, both. I'm not sure what 'natural' means in this context, though.

natural means not fruit or flavoured...

used to be you could use most yoghurts as starter but I think they pasteurise a lot of them now, hence you need to buy one that's labelled as "live", which means the culture is still alive...

AskCy

still not showing ?

Steve

Thanks for that.

I'll have to figure out how, in this context, 'live' translates into French.

In France, try any yoghurt labelled 'Au Bifidus'. 'Au lait entier' seems to work better, but my experience has been that most French yoghurts work better than the English ones, don't know why!

French yoghurt. In fact I think au bifidus actif is the live one, but I've used both with equally good results.

In India shops use clay pots to make yogurt, but here in UK is it ok if we do the same?

I am glad the culture is sorted out already :-).

Yes, you can use clay pot. If it is the old Indian style pot, a non-glazed one, it will absorb some liquid and your yoghurt may be thicker, which is an advantage to my mind.

Tanks for the French tips!

hil

if it is an unglazed one, some of the moisture from the yoghurt will be absorbed, and evaporated by the air temps (in India) and keep the pot, and therefore the yoghurt, cool.

They used the same principle in the UK for milk, before everyone had fridges.

There are all sorts of sources for starter cultures:

- previously cultured batch of yogurt you made

- starter packet bought online or in a health store

- cup of any yogurt with live cultures in it - plain if possible

- capsules of probiotics - you will need to break it open, pour into some tempered milk (milk heated to 180F and cooled at least to 115F) in a jar, cover the jar and keep warm at least overnight.

The one secret way of making sure your yogurt cultures properly in as little as 2 hours is to put the culture in with some tempered milk in a blender and blend it for 10 or so seconds. Then pour it back into the rest of the tempered milk, whisk for 10 seconds or so and then strain into jars for culturing.

Since my wife and I make over a gallon of yogurt a week - just for the price of the milk - we bought an inexpensive Waring Pro electric yogurt machine and have never had a failure. For more on yogurt machines: http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Yogurt-By-Machine

We maintain a website: http://mryogurt.info/

Good luck and God bless,

Bill

The one secret way of making sure your yogurt cultures properly in as little as 2 hours is to put the culture in with some tempered milk in a blender and blend it for 10 or so seconds. Then pour it back into the rest of the tempered milk, whisk for 10 seconds or so and then strain into jars for culturing.

Sorry, can't get the links below to work, so you will have to coipy and paste to see the pictures!

Interesting method, though I have never gone to so much trouble for it. To make yoghurt, I use a standard wire hand whisk to mix the culture with the milk.

This is an old fashioned milk churn of India;

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://karmafreecooking.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/yogurt-churner.jpg&imgrefurl=http://karmafreecooking.wordpress.com/category/breakfast/&usg=__OnHMbCFBo4OeCaNc8YWxMSH9vDI=&h=372&w=336&sz=47&hl=en&start=619&sig2=HI8CzXggiwjitynfY7oUXA&zoom=1&tbnid=2rqVzBy9YWczrM:&tbnh=155&tbnw=140&ei=ujFvTfPJOsy74Abx2uzKDQ&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dpicture%2Bof%2Bwooden%2Bindian%2Bmilk%2Bchurn%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-GB:official%26biw%3D1600%26bih%3D677%26tbs%3Disch:11%2C15846&chk=sbg&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=359&vpy=356&dur=390&hovh=189&hovw=171&tx=99&ty=149&oei=mi9vTcvTHpOFhQe4wqxK&page=29&ndsp=22&ved=1t:429,r:16,s:619&biw=1600&bih=677

The commonest method used at home (and at smaller shops is something like this picture;

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.wdexpo.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/3e39063727d56f744645a61e3d59a16f-266x300.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.wdexpo.org/tag/milk/page/2/&usg=__QCbabtY5GjwmYuxVCA12ZZj7-po=&h=300&w=266&sz=12&hl=en&start=21&sig2=m1U5JEIFkcgmzm0YQf7sMQ&zoom=1&tbnid=UmE0rrRPAuLRYM:&tbnh=174&tbnw=152&ei=BTRvTYHAAZGq4AbgosT5DA&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dcooling%2Bmilk%2Bby%2Bouring%2Bit%2Bfrom%2Bone%2Bglass%2Bto%2Banother%2Bin%2Ba%2Blong%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-GB:official%26biw%3D1600%26bih%3D677%26tbs%3Disch:10%2C503&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=530&vpy=175&dur=412&hovh=174&hovw=154&tx=87&ty=140&oei=RzNvTY60NYKXhQf5gpCrBQ&page=2&ndsp=22&ved=1t:429,r:2,s:21&biw=1600&bih=677.

Here, milk and culture are dropped from one container to another from a height (greater than in picture) a few times.

While looking for a picture of an Indian wooden milk churn, I came across this picture;

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.gangesindia.com/media/catalog/product/cache/2/image/600x/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/D/S/DSC02370-Panjabi-Lady-Big_3.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.gangesindia.com/review/product/list/id/1735/category/132/&usg=__p5k5vTn3WsTWgbEknq-MxD-3r-U=&h=600&w=600&sz=55&hl=en&start=255&sig2=tcuRR5Ygv8HOIL2HoCqzmg&zoom=1&tbnid=dlnUE8uaAXVppM:&tbnh=158&tbnw=178&ei=oC9vTZ32O8uK4gaEl7ibDQ&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dpicture%2Bof%2Bwooden%2Bindian%2Bmilk%2Bchurn%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-GB:official%26biw%3D1600%26bih%3D677%26tbs%3Disch:11%2C6183&chk=sbg&um=1&itbs=1&iact=rc&dur=415&oei=mi9vTcvTHpOFhQe4wqxK&page=12&ndsp=22&ved=1t:429,r:3,s:255&tx=62&ty=89&biw=1600&bih=677

When we were kids, my parents always had a cow or a buffalo in their back yard/garden for milk for the family. My mum used to churn a large pot of yoghurt like this most mornings. Domestic butter was made by churnng yoghurt, not milk. Of course she did not dress like the woman in the statue LOL!

obviously like your website however you need to check the spelling on several of your posts. Several of them are rife with spelling issues and I to find it very bothersome to tell the truth on the other hand I will definitely come again again. afdfadgedeeaeafg

Noted!