Ask Allie!
Ask Allie is our advice column, where you can ask all your food-related questions to get digestible answers! No question 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!
Hello. I accidentally let a couple of my milk kefirs ferment a little too long this time and it looks like it has separated into curds and whey. I wanted to reach out to see if I'll be able to still strain them and keep the grains or are they lost?
— Jeremy
Shake them first to make it easier to strain, but yes, strain and proceed as usual. This will make great mashed potatoes, if you don’t like the way it tastes.
My yogurt has started being a bit fizzy? Is there a fix for this or should I start over with new starter? Icelandic Skyr thermophilic regular. I use a crock pot. I heat to 180F, then let it cool to 110-115. Then stir some warm milk into the starter culture, then stir that into the warmed milk in the crock pot and wrap with a thick towel over night. I have messed up a couple of times and didn’t turn the crock pot off after it achieved 180F. Then because of timing, cooled it too fast, probably.
— Laurie
I let my milk boil for hours in the crockpot most of the time (it caramelizes the sugar in milk, making the yogurt sweeter and giving a more velvety texture), so that’s definitely not the issue. Your milk is too hot when you’re adding the culture. Try to keep it in the 95-105 range. You can go as hot as 110, but it’s not ideal long-term. Most people who do this wind up with an array of problems. Are you putting the wrapped crock in the oven (turned off) or a cooler? If not, I would try that, too. With just a towel and nothing else to help hold that heat, your milk is probably cooling off too quickly and trying to spoil. So yeah, I’d drop the heat and use a cooler or the oven to make sure it’s holding its temp better.
So I made skyr with your cultures for the first time ever (I've never fermented anything before!) + I used just 1 packet in a gallon of milk + used the instant pot yogurt setting for 24 hours. It looks and tastes fine but when reading about starting it, it seems like I should have used way more cultures. Is only the 1 tsp of cultures in a gallon of milk ok?
— Erika
Yep, you can keep doing it. The IP apparently keeps it in appropriate range on the low setting for what you’re doing. Thanks for letting me know this is the situation w/ the low setting! Going to check it out, myself! Check it out on page 5 of the manual!
