How to Make Yogurt Using Raw Milk
Can you use raw milk to make yogurt? This question comes up a lot, so here’s a guide for you!
This document is not all the information you need while you are activating yogurts. Please make sure you are still using the activation pages for thermophil and/or mesophil yogurts, as well as the FAQ.
Before we dive in, let’s talk about raw milk and yogurt. In order to make mesophilic yogurt with raw milk there is an additional step that needs to be done in order to be sure you keep the starter culture pure. You have to make a mother culture. A what? What is a “mother culture”, and why do I have to? A mother culture is a basically a portion of yogurt that has been pasteurized prior to adding starter cultures.
Raw milk has not been heat treated, and therefore still contains its own bacteria. Those bacteria can and will compete with the bacteria inside your yogurt cultures. Eventually, the starter culture will weaken and die because it’s just too hard to keep trudging through an army of aggressive, competing, microbes. It hurts, but it’s true. This is why maintaining a mother is an important step in the process if you are using raw milk. A mother culture will keep the culture pure and prevent die off.
Here is what you’ll need:
Stainless steel pot
Thermometer
Raw Milk
Cooking utensil to skim the skin of the milk (A fork works perfectly well for this, but some of us possibly could just be reaching in and plucking the skin off with our fingertips. Shhhhh)
Yogurt cultures (Huge selection of yogurt cultures here!)
Basically, what we are doing is killing off any dangerous pathogens as well as any rogue bacteria by heating the milk and creating a blank slate for the yogurt cultures to thrive in with little to no competition.
Heat the milk slowly to 180 degrees Fahrenheit in a stainless steel pot. Heating the milk too fast can cause a gritty/grainy/lumpy texture. If you’re like some of us and just can’t spare the time or mental bandwidth to babysit your pot, go on ahead and use the crockpot for this. Just set an alarm on your phone so you don’t forget about it entirely.
Hold the temperature for 30 minutes. The longer the milk is held at 180 the more bacteria are killed off. Skim milk skin as it appears and toss (or eat, it’s delicious).
Cool the milk back down to room temperature between 68-78 degrees Fahrenheit.
Add the yogurt starter to the milk and stir thoroughly.
Ferment for 12-18 hours. When the yogurt has gelled and pulls from the sides it’s done. If the weather is cool, expect this to take longer and if the weather is warm, shorter. NOTE: If you are activating a culture for the first time, this step can take up to 48 hours and you will need to do this pasteurization process up 3 times in order to fully awaken the cultures before fermenting in raw milk.
