Milk Fermentation (Low-Fat Plain Yogurt / Greek Yogurt / Ricotta Cheese)

Milk Fermentation 

(Low-Fat Plain Yogurt / Greek Yogurt / Ricotta Cheese) 

For my first attempt, I used full cream milk powder. Later I realized that it is not really an ideal choice. Or maybe, I used too little water to make the milk liquid. Hence, my yogurt has a super strong cream smell/taste. I don't quite like it. Other than that, my Greek yogurt has a chalky taste too. I think it is due over concentrated milk powder. 

It's okay. I learned a lot from my first attempt - that brings me to successes in making 3 different things at one-shot. Haha. 

I successfully obtained regular yogurt and Greek yogurt, followed up by the ricotta cheese due to my failure attempts on saving the yogurt. 

I'll be writing the new recipe that I had based on my success in making the low-fat plain yogurt: 

Low-Fat Plain Yogurt

INGREDIENTS:

1 liter of low fat milk (Dutch Lady Pure Farm - Low Fat High Calcium Milk) 452cal 

1 1/2 tablespoon of starter yogurt (with live bacteria - I used Nestle's plain yogurt) 11.4cal

TOTAL: 463.4cal (~1kg yogurt) 

STEPS

1. Pour milk into a metal pot (cleansed properly). Simmer till almost boiling - when the edges have bubbles formed. Stir while cooking to prevent milk sticking on the bottom of the pot. 
2. Remove the milk from heat. Stirring continuously to reduce the temperature of the milk until your pinky can withstand the heat for 10 seconds.
3. Take 1 tablespoon of plain yogurt and mix with 1 big scoop of milk.until well blended. 
4. Pour (3) into the remaining milk. Stir well. 
5. Fill sterilized glass jars (mason jars/containers) with the mixture. Tighten the cap. 
6. Leave it in the oven (don't have to switch on the electricity or the oven light) for at least 5 - 6 hours. 
7. Remove it from the oven and place in the fridge when the milk has coagulated to form yogurt (when it looks like taufu fa). Feel free to taste the yogurt when it has coagulated. The longer you leave it to continue fermenting, the sourer/tart taste will be.  
8. Yogurt is ready.

Greek Yogurt

To make Greek yogurt, you basically just need to strain the regular yogurt to obtain the curd. 

You can use anything that is fine enough to do this - such as a piece of cheesecloth, super-fine siever (not the regular ones used for flour), tea strainer 

The only trouble about Greek yogurt is that you will have lots of excess whey. Whey = whey powder in the very natural form. Why waste it? People spend money buying it. I have read some sources that said the uses include:

• replacing water in cooking rice/noodles with whey
• replacing buttermilk ingredient in your baking recipes (for 1 cup of buttermilk, use 3/4 of whey)
• use it as conditioner (dilute the whey with some water)
• use it to marinate meat, to replace lemon/lime purpose
• mix into your water and drink as normal 
• mix into fruit juices 
• mix into milk and add some fresh fruits to make a great high protein smoothie 
• water your plants 
• many more - 

This is how whey looks like. Yellowish liquid that doesn't look appealing at all. It should taste sour if it comes from yogurt fermentation. I read that if it's from cheese making, then it is gonna be sweet whey. This whey is acidic and contains many nutrients which are beneficial to our health.

This is what I made - pasteurized milk (roughly 200ml) with diluted whey (roughly 50ml). I added some blueberries in. Great refreshing beverage after workout - good flush of protein into your body to repair muscles. 

Ricotta Cheese

Ricotta means recooking. That's what I read from one of the Internet sources. 

Basically you just need to take the plain yogurt that you have made, bring it into the pot and heat it with high temperature until the whey and curd separated on their own. This way, you will get curds floating everywhere and they will not combine with the whey to go back to the yogurt milky liked stage no matter how hard you try to stir the mixture. 

Similarly, after heating the yogurt, strain the whey away and the curd is then known as the ricotta cheese. You may add some salt and lemon juice for seasoning. I left it plain. I only add salt when I use it in my cooking. I tested it with pasta - somewhat alfredo kind of sauce. 

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All these while I thought fermenting milk to make yogurt is an extremely dangerous thing to do as I'm playing about with bacteria that I cannot see with naked eyes. Haha.. The thought of making yogurt arises when my store bought yogurt is finishing soon. Everyone knows the health benefits of yogurt and I just don't want to spend too much money on this - saving every cent that I could so that I could spend on other stuff - Hehe

Here are a few reasons why I think you should start making your own yogurt from home.

1) Don't need fancy utensils

• You just need a pot to cook the milk and a spoon to stir. Lastly, you need a refrigerator to chill the yogurt. When you have a kitchen, you certainly have these basic things around. Nothing expensive and fancy. You will be able to prepare fresh and yummy yogurt. Of course, other than those two things, you will need containers/glass jars to fill up the yogurt. Some people use porcelain containers and some even plastic. I personally think glass jars with lids are perfect.  

2) Save money

• I bought 400+ grams Nestle plain yogurt at around RM 6+. When you make your own yogurt from scratch, you can get double of that amount of yogurt , not to mention fresher. Also, it is much cheaper. A box of 1 liter of low fat milk costs RM 5. You can yield almost 1000 grams (1kg) of yogurt from that. The calculations are simple and direct. Figure it out yourself to see how much you can save when you do it yourself. 

3) Be healthy, include more good bacteria for better digestion

• Yogurt is such a good ingredient to be used in many cookings. I tried making some curry the other day using a little yogurt. It tastes real good. Not only that, you can use it for dessert and many more. Be creative. It is a yummy and super food. 

4) Malaysia's weather is perfect for bacteria's' growth in yogurt

• There is no reason to say 'no' to yogurt (unless you are suffering from lactose intolerance) especially if you are staying in Malaysia. The Westerners need to come out with many different methods to keep the milk warm in order to have good fermentation process. However in Malaysia, our weather is humid and warm throughout the year, you just need to leave the jar somewhere warm, such as your kitchen's counter or better/quicker, in your oven, closed-up. There is no need to look for special incubating tools or what not to get the fermentation process smooth. Everything works naturally on its own and not to mention, super quick. It takes 6 hours or so for mine to turn solidify.