Activating The Culture

1. Slowly heat 1 cup of pasteurized milk to 180 degrees Fahrenheit. Use the lowest setting your stove has, or a crockpot on the lowest setting. To prevent the milk from sticking to the bottom of the pan, you can rub an ice cube along the bottom or you can pour a bit of water into the pan, swirl, and pour the excess off. Add the milk as usual.

2. Remove the milk from the heat and allow to cool to 95-105 degrees Fahrenheit.

3. Pour cooled milk into a container and add the packet of starter culture. Mix well.

4. Cover the mixture and incubate at 95-105 degrees for 5-12 hours in a yogurt maker or similar appliance.

5. Check after 5 hours to see if it has set. If it has not set, leave it for up to 12 hours, checking every 30-60 minutes. Once it has set, or at the end of 12 hours (whichever comes first), turn off the yogurt maker and allow it to cool for 2 hours.

6. Refrigerate the yogurt for at least 6 hours. This step is not necessary if you plan to make the next batch right away. This step is mainly to help further thicken the yogurt.

7. For the remaining 2 activation batches, you will repeat steps 1-6, except you will use 1 tablespoon of the yogurt you just made in place of the powdered culture you received in the mail.

   Side note for instant pot or similar devices, it's absolutely ridiculous to try and ferment a measly cup of milk in the huge liner. Instead, make sure to ferment the milk in a trusty mason jar, placed on the rack that came with your device, with a bit of water underneath. This setup will ensure your yogurt ferments to perfection, without any fuss or muss.

Making Yogurt On The Regular

Spoiler Alert: You can’t do this until at least 3 (up to 5) activation batches are complete and your culture is setting up properly

1. Slowly heat 1 quart of pasteurized milk to 180 degrees Fahrenheit. Use the lowest setting your stove has. To prevent the milk from sticking to the bottom of the pan, you can rub an ice cube along the bottom or pour a bit of water into the pan, swirl, and pour the excess off. Add the milk as usual. Alternately, UHT milk.

2. Remove the milk from the heat and allow to cool to 95-105 degrees Fahrenheit.

3. Add 4 Tbsp. (1/4 cup) of yogurt from the previous batch and mix well. The ratio here is one tablespoon of culture per cup of milk.

4. Pour the milk into the container(s), cover the mixture, and culture for 5-12 hours at 95-105 degrees Fahrenheit. After 5 hours, check the yogurt frequently by tilting the jar gently. If the yogurt moves away from the side of the jar in one mass instead of running up the side, it is finished culturing. Some yogurts will need longer than 12 hours, so if it isn’t set at 12, give it some more time.

5. Once it has set, allow it to cool for 2 hours and refrigerate until cold.

Don’t forget to save a couple tablespoons for culturing the next batch, plus a couple to freeze as backups!

Should you have any problems with your yogurt starter, please email us prior to throwing the starter away.

We can probably help you save it.

In some cases, your culture will be a bit sluggish when you first activate it. You’ll know this happened if it is too thin or runny, or if it has some lumps and some milk. Just keep keepin’ on, and it should be acting normally by the the third batch. Your second and third batches will use a ratio of 1 tablespoon of yogurt from the last batch to 1 cup of fresh milk. Even if your batch is runny, overfermented, or otherwise weird. This is the same ratio you’ll use once your culture is activated. Don’t forget to check out our FAQ for answers to common issues!

You can skip the heating the milk entirely if you use UHT (ultra-pasteurized) milk, and simply heat your milk to 100F.

If you choose to incubate in a cooler or in the oven with the light turned on (wrap your closed container in blankets first!), this process will take up to 24 hours. You can just set an alarm and come back in 24, if you like. You may also use the “mead method” in your Instant Pot, which does all 3 activation batches in one continuous cycle for 36 hours. This is Allie’s favorite activation method these days, and it was developed by our lovely community member, Tara S.

You can eat your yogurt any time after it’s made, except what you save for the next batch. Refrigerating helps set the yogurt, but if you want to eat some of your warm yogurt, dew eet! In some of our houses, kids claim the first bowls while the yogurt is still warm.

Tips and Tricks

• We like to ferment our yogurt in pint or quart-sized mason jars. This makes it easier once it’s done culturing. Just put lids on the containers and set on the counter to cool for the 2 hours. There is no need to transfer to another container at the end of the ferment. We find that the quart and pint sized jars fit very well in the DASH bulk yogurt makers. To make serving size portions, the half-pint or pint sized jars are perfect and fit very well in an instant pot over the rack.

• Never buy yogurt again! Heirloom yogurt can be cultured over and over again. This means that if you take care of your culture, you never have to buy yogurt again! To keep your culture viable, you must try to make your next batch of yogurt within 5-7 days. After that time frame, the culture can start to die off and may not be healthy enough to re-culture. As an aside, people still make Trotsky’s yogurt. Heirloom yogurts can seriously reculture milk for centuries.