Saturday, October 9, 2010

Yogurt Fail-Sauce

Wel'p.

My poor yogurt I made this week wasn't meant to be.

At first, it didn't really ever "gel." So I finally had the guts to open a jar of it thursday night and realized it gelled a little bit, but it was still really runny. It tasted ok but wasn't quite sweet enough for my tasted. So I thought, hey, I'll just reheat it and add more yogurt starter, and do it all over again now that I have a thermometer. This should be cake. Riight.

The cooking process did not leave me hopeful. First, all of the whey got cooked out of it. So it was all these little curds, almost like cottage cheese, only not as pretty, in a pale yellowy liquid. I let it cool to the proper temp and then blended it very thoroughly on the "liquefy" setting on my blender. It seemed to help. I added more starter and a bit more sugar and blended it more. Then I poured it in the jars and let it rest in the coolers.

Friday morning I got out my Frankenstein jars of yogurt and I knew my hopes were dashed. Of course, it had re-separated. It was the right sweetness this time, but it had a nasty grainy texture. I just couldn't eat it. I feel bad because I could at least eat it the way it turned out the first time. Plus I had no idea that a second cooking would completely kill the homogenizing that they do to milk.

So I threw it away. Sad day.

Tomorrow we're going to the store to get more milk and I'm going to make a smaller batch so that if it fails again I won't waste quite as much milk. I am really hoping I get it right this time as I don't have too much starter left. I think it will work. I think with a thermometer for the first cooking, everything should be fine.

Lesson Learned: Don't ever, EVER try to re-cook a failed batch of yogurt. It's nasty.

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