Ask Allie!
What is Ask Allie?
Ask Allie is our food-related advice column, where you can ask all your fermenting, cooking, baking, and pantry-related questions to get digestible answers! No question about food is off limits!
Most of you will receive an emailed reply prior to your question hitting the blog, since I frequently think you need a more immediate answer. You should anticipate 1-2 weeks between submitting your question and its appearance on blog. Although emailed replies normally take between 1-3 days, it can take up to a week.
To have your question answered in Ask Allie posts, please use the form on our website. If you prefer to be anonymous, just say so in the form and we’ll leave your name out when we answer it in the blog! Note that some submissions may be edited for clarity.
For troubleshooting active issues with a culture you’re working with, please check the FAQs or write us at support@positivelyprobiotic.com - you’ll get your answer faster that way! Please also take advantage of our Facebook group for troubleshooting, conversation, and getting to know more members of our community!
Can I make yogurt or kefir with raw goat milk?
— Carol
Yes. For yogurt, you do need to pasteurize some of the milk, per our raw milk guide, but with kefir it’s fine to do it all raw. Be aware that goat’s milk does result in a runnier yogurt than cow’s milk does, so you will probably need to strain your yogurts to get them richer/thicker (or you can use stabilizers).
I received my cultures today. Icelandic sour and Long skyr. Neither have instructions. Your website only lists activation for meso and thermophillic. I am an avid yogurt maker and a novice cheese maker, so do understand those terms. However without knowing what temps these little guys like, I am reluctant to start. A concise recipe would be nice. Having great difficulty navigating your site. Eager and frustrated.
— Naomi
We mostly just have directions for mesophilic yogurts and thermophilic, because those are the two main categories of them. Anything that has special activation needs outside those two categories has a separate activation guide on the website. For the long skyr, you’ll use mesophilic directions.
For the regular Icelandic, you can do either, but will need to choose because the activation method you pick is the one the yogurt will want to stick with. So if you want to do the Icelandic as a mesophil, you can. But if you think you may at some point want to switch to thermophilic fermentation, you’d want to save half of your packet in the freezer since it won’t switch methods easily. And vice versa if you choose thermophilic and later want to do mesophilic. The packets you received should tell you whether each culture is meso or thermo, but for the Icelandic you can pick the route you go. I think which activation method needed is in the top left corner in small print, but don’t quote me on that because I don’t deal with production or distribution and may be misremembering the location this is specified on the packet. Anyway, it’s in “get your reading glasses” small print on one of those top corners.
I hope this helps, Naomi, in your determining which guide you want to use for the Icelandic!
What size jar is recommended for sourdough starter?
— Bill
I like pints. It controls for letting it grow to big while still allowing for growing space. Many people prefer 750mL. That said, if you’re using the Danish starter, best go 750. I had that one overflow all over my counter!
