Sometime last year, I decided to try my hand at making yogurt. Darah eats yogurt at least once a day, and we were reaching the point where I was thinking about investing in some yogurt stocks (only half kidding…that kid eats a LOT of yogurt). I had heard people online say that making it wasn’t so hard and could help you save money.
That was all I needed to hear; I was in!
I used a crockpot method that involved several steps, and heating the milk at varying temperatures for about 18 hours. It was a long process.
The end result for me? Chunky milk, which is NOT yogurt. It was SOOO disappointing! I didn’t roll my sleeves up and try again. I just quit. One spoiled gallon of milk was enough for me to go back to buying yogurt.
But then I learned about a very cool cool gadget called the Automatic Yogurt Maker. I found it at an awesome online resource that is all about cheese making called the New England Cheesemaking Supply Company. Hang on to your hats, folks….a review of their cheesemaking kit is forthcoming! So exciting!!! I’m not usually a fan of kitchen gadgets that just do one thing, but considering just how much yogurt my family eats, it made sense for us to give it a whirl.
Here’s a video showing you what we did! We had a thermometer (came in our cheesemaking kit) to help us get the temperature just right in the beginning.
I’m very happy to report that the yogurt maker worked beautifully and took about 1/3 of the time as the method I tried before. And it tastes awesome! While we used some store bought yogurt to create a starter this time, we can either save one jar of yogurt that we make to use as the starter for our next batch, or we can use some of the yogurt cultures that the New England Cheesemaking Supply Company sends along with your purchase. We’ll never buy yogurt again! Wow! This product is a winner for us, and if your family eats a lot of yogurt, I highly recommend it! This is a really great way to make organic yogurt for a fraction of what it costs in the stores. The Automatic Yogurt Maker is available for $49.95.
Win it!: Oh my gosh, this is such a fun giveaway! One lucky Stuff Parents Need reader is going to win the Automatic Yogurt Maker, courtesy of the New England Cheesemaking Company! The contest will run until June 21st at 11:59pm EST when a winner will be selected using Random.org. The winner will have 48 hours to respond to notification before the prize is forfeited and a new winner is selected. Open to residents of the United States. Limit one entrant per household, please.
Mandatory entry: The New England Cheesemaking Supply Company is such a cool cheesemaking resource. Poke around the website and tell me something you learned there or something else you’d like to own.
Additional entries:
1. Sponsor love: Join the monthly newsletter for the New England Cheesemaking Supply Company
2. Blogger love: Subscribe to Stuff Parents Need by email or RSS
Be sure to enter my other current giveaways, found on the sidebar of my homepage.
Disclosure: I received a complimentary product for review purposes. The opinions expressed here are strictly my own.