How to use a yogurt maker correctly

People are increasingly moving away from store-bought and artificially prepared foods in favor of homemade and organic foods. Even such a dairy product as yogurt began to be prepared at home. This can be done using a device called a yogurt maker, which has recently become more and more popular, especially among young mothers. To prepare tasty and healthy yoghurt, you need to follow the instructions, so below we will tell you how to use your homemade yoghurt maker correctly.

What can you cook in a yogurt maker?

From the name of the device it is clear that you can make yogurt with it. But the functionality of this unit is quite wide, and you can make various dairy products in it:

• sour cream;
• kefir;
• fermented baked milk;
• cottage cheese;
• ice cream;
• fermented baked milk;
• yogurt;
• sherbet;
• bifilak.

Despite such a wide range of dishes, they will all be distinguished by their freshness and healthiness.

Conditions for making yoghurt

The main ingredients for making yoghurt are: milk; leaven; fillers. To prepare this fermented milk product, milk must be fresh and preferably boiled. The high temperature will destroy all negative microflora, and live bacteria will appear from the leaven. If we talk about the fat content of milk, then the higher it is, the thicker the finished product will turn out. The best option is to use farm milk or homemade milk. The fat content of store-bought milk should be 3.5%.

Sourdough cannot be excluded from the yoghurt making process, otherwise nothing will work. You can use a ready-made starter culture or any yogurt you have at home. If the choice fell on ready-made yogurt, then you need to know that you need to use it in a proportion of 120 ml to a liter of milk. For a starter culture purchased from a pharmacy, the dosage is written in the instructions.

The use of fillers will help make the yogurt taste more varied. For these purposes, berries, fruits, cocoa, jam and jam are quite suitable. It is necessary to check the expiration date of the product before use.

In order to cook not only yogurt in a yogurt maker, but also other fermented milk products:

• Sour cream can be prepared in almost all devices, but to obtain a quality product, the temperature regime is much lower than for yogurt.
• Not all machines can cook cottage cheese - this requires a special program. For cottage cheese, a special container is needed.
• Ice cream, sorbet and frozen yogurt must also be prepared using the special option.

Two main conditions for the future result are cooking time and temperature.

1. The required fermentation time is 8–12 hours. If time is shorter, you will end up with liquid yogurt. If all recommendations have been strictly followed, then the product will turn out to be tender and nutritious.
2. Temperature - you cannot overheat the yogurt, because this will kill the microflora and you can forget about the homogeneous composition.

Instructions for making yogurt

How to make yogurt can be found in the instructions for each model of yogurt maker, but there are still a number of general principles:

• Before fermenting the product, it is necessary to wash all the jars very carefully and sterilize. Note that the use of detergents is strictly prohibited, they can disrupt the microflora of the finished product.
• The unit must be placed on a level surface.
• Pour milk into a saucepan or ladle, place on the stove and warm to room temperature. Powdered milk for these purposes is strictly prohibited to use.
• Pour a small spoonful of warm milk into a jar of leaven and spill. If these ingredients are used in a bowl, then you need to pour its contents into a small container, add a spoonful of milk and shake.
• Pour warmed fermenting agent into the container with milk, mix.
• You can’t add sugar in advance.
• Gently pour the mixture into jars.
• Place the containers on the yogurt maker tray and close the lid.
• Set the desired time on the display - from 6 to 10 hours. If you do not remove the yogurt in time, you can get sour cream, cottage cheese or fermented baked milk.
• Leave to cook yogurt.
• As soon as the fermented milk product is cooked, it must be taken out, cooled and refrigerated for at least 2.5 hours.
• Store no more than 5-8 days under a sealed lid.

When using the apparatus with one tank, all the resulting sourdough is poured into this bowl. If the unit contains several glass jars, 6-12 pieces, then the whole mixture obtained is poured into jars in equal proportions.

Rules for caring for a yogurt maker

Before using a yogurt maker, it is necessary not only to wash and dry it well, but also to sterilize the tanks at home. This can be done in several ways:

1. You need to take a bowl or small containers, fill them up to half with hot water and put them in the microwave at low power. Immediately after the water boils and steam appears, remove the bowl or jar, pour the water out of them and dry it for 30–40 minutes. There is no need to wipe all the jars.
2. The easiest way: several times pour jars of steep boiling water over and leave to dry.
3. You can use a double boiler: you need to place a container or containers in it and let steam in for 15 minutes.

In this article, we have explained how to use the yoghurt maker, how to ferment yoghurt, what ingredients to use and how to care for the machine.