I wanted to show you what a slightly scientific approach can do for homemade yogurt. (The video is in Turkish; the method is below.)
The short answer
I bring whole raw milk up to 82 °C, hold it there for 15 seconds and turn off the heat. When it cools to 43–44 °C, I stir in 1 tablespoon of yogurt for every half liter. The glass jars are covered with paper towel, not their lids, wrapped in a towel and left for 5 hours, then go into the fridge uncovered for 12–24 hours. The result: yogurt so firm it stays put when you turn the jar upside down.
Recipe
Homemade Yogurt
- Prep5 hours setting + 12–24 hours in the fridge
Ingredients
- 500 ml whole raw milk
- 1 tbsp yogurt, as a starter
Equipment
Saucepan, kitchen thermometer, glass jars, paper towels, rubber bands, a towel
Method
- Heat the whole raw milk to 82 °C and turn off the heat as soon as it gets there.
- Meanwhile, take the yogurt you’ll use as a starter out of the fridge. I suggest 1 tbsp of yogurt for every 500 ml of milk.
- Let the milk cool to 43.5 °C, then stir in the yogurt.
- Pour the milk into glass jars, cover the mouths with paper towel and secure with rubber bands.
- Lay a towel on a surface, wrap the jars in it and leave them for 5 hours. The longer you leave them, the more sour the yogurt.
- After 5 hours, once the yogurt has set, keep it in the fridge, uncovered, for 12–24 hours.
Notes
- See the Storage section in the post for how to keep it safely.
The milk: raw and full-fat
I make my yogurt with raw milk. You can use pasteurized milk too, but if you can find whole raw milk, you’re already one step closer to great yogurt. In Türkiye it’s not hard to find anymore: dairies have their own shops, big supermarkets have raw-milk days, and some dairies deliver to your door.
Don’t boil the milk for hours
Yogurt recipes often repeat things like “boil the milk for an hour and a half.” I bring it to 82 °C over high heat, hold it there for 15 seconds and turn off the heat, which is pasteurizing it at home. For 3 liters that takes 12–13 minutes at most, and it never needs to be at a rolling boil.
Boil the milk hard and long enough to drive off its water and of course you’ll get thick yogurt, but you lose nutritional value along the way. That’s not why we make yogurt at home.
The setting temperature: don’t trust your little finger
Yogurt sets best between 43 and 44 °C. The old advice to dip your little finger in the milk is badly wrong: I can put my finger in liquid at 53–55 °C, and when I tried setting yogurt at that temperature it failed and split into something like curd. Keep a kitchen thermometer at home; you buy it once and use it for life.
Starter ratio and mixing
- Ratio: 1 tablespoon of yogurt for every half liter of milk; 6 tablespoons for 3 liters.
- As soon as the milk comes off the heat, take the starter yogurt out of the fridge, stir it in a bowl and let it come to room temperature.
- When the milk is at 43–44 °C, add it to the yogurt a spoonful at a time while stirring, so the temperatures match and it doesn’t split.
- Once that’s smooth, pour it all back into the milk.
Jars and wrapping
- Use glass or earthenware; I wouldn’t recommend other materials, for health reasons.
- I use wide-mouthed glass jars about 10 cm across, a little over half a liter each: they take up little space in the fridge and I can see the yogurt. 3 liters of milk fills 6 jars.
- Cover the mouth with two sheets of paper towel held with a rubber band: it catches the steam and nothing from the towel falls in.
- Never close the jar with its lid, or cover an earthenware pot; the yogurt needs to keep breathing off steam.
- Wrap the jars together in one towel rather than one by one; they keep each other warm. If your home is 26–27 °C, one layer of towel is enough; at 21–22 °C, use two.
Why 5 hours?
The shorter it sets, the sweeter the yogurt; the longer, the more sour. Some people leave it 12 or even 16 hours; if you like it sour, go ahead. I like mine slightly sweet, so 5 hours is enough for me.
Storage
My note: After 5 hours I take off the paper towel and put the yogurt in the fridge uncovered for 12–24 hours, which gets rid of the last of the moisture. If there’s no cut onion, garlic or wilted herbs in your fridge, it won’t pick up any smells even after 36 hours uncovered.
Please note: With homemade yogurt, what matters most is correct heating, clean containers and proper storage. If you use raw milk, don’t skip the 82 °C step; wash the jars well with hot water and dry them. Move the set yogurt to the fridge without delay and keep it there. Before eating, check the smell, color and surface: if there’s mold, foaming, bulging or an unusual smell, don’t eat it; if in any doubt, throw it out. If you’re not sure, eat it within a few days.
Bonus: homemade kaymak
If I set aside part of the 82 °C milk for yogurt, the rest becomes drinking milk or kaymak, Turkish clotted cream. In a pot, the cream only ever forms across the pot’s surface, so a bigger surface gives you more. I pour the milk about 2 cm deep into a wide glass dish, roughly 30 × 20 cm.
- Once the milk is at room temperature, put the dish in the fridge uncovered for 24 hours.
- Cut around the edges and down the middle with a knife; you’ll have two sheets of kaymak.
- Lift one into a dish and lay the other on top: a layer of kaymak 1–1.5 cm thick.
- Enjoy the milk left in the dish.
Keep reading and listening
- Cheese on our podcast YBYK (in Turkish): episode 25, with Berrin Onur Bal and Neşe Aksoy Biber
- Fermentation on YBYK (in Turkish): episode 28, Pickles 101, 201 and even 301
- Sourdough starter recipe
- Fresh, active dry and instant yeast: conversion table
