Goat-Milk Maid

As many of you know I am allergic to cow-milk and cow-milk products. I had avoided eating anything with milk in it since my diagnosis almost 10 years ago, but when Ivan and I started dating I began eating goat and sheep milk cheeses because I am not allergic to them and, well, he loves cheese.

I also began eating goat milk yogurt on a regular basis because it happens to be one of my all time favorite breakfasts: yogurt with banana, walnuts and honey. I hadn't been able to enjoy it for many years and did a little Snoopy dance when I realized I no longer had to deny myself.

When I got home from the bike trip I was doing some mindless web-surfing (as one is wont to do) when I stumbled across, somewhere, a site or article about making your own yogurt and how easy it was with the use of a yogurt maker. With some research I came to the conclusion that it was easy to make and a yogurt maker wasn't too expensive. Additionally, over time, making my own yogurt should prove to be cheaper than buying it and, perhaps, be better for me as it would have less additives. It would certainly be fresher. I was taken with the idea and this past weekend marked my first attempt. I was very happy with the results because I had read that the first attempt can be a nightmare. Here's what I did:

From my research I decided to purchase a EuroCuisine YM100 Yogurt Maker from Amazon. While you don't need a maker I liked the idea of having one aspect of the process, the incubation/fermentation stage, automated. By using the maker I won't have to monitor the temperature at all for the 8-10 hours it takes.

I found lots of how-to sites each with it own variant of what to do. I decided to follow the basic directions from the how-to video from Chez Us because they use the same yogurt maker. I also took some various tips I picked up from 101 Cookbooks into consideration as well. I figure that it will take a couple of attempts to get it just right.

The recipe:

• 1 quart goat milk (as fresh as you can find)
• 1/2 cup of plain goat yogurt with live cultures to use as your starter
  

The tools:

• 1 Yogurt maker
• candy thermometer
• whisk
• sauce pan
• large spoon

ALL YOU NEED

The directions: Wash all of your containers and tools thoroughly to avoid contamination. Slowly heat one quart of milk on low-medium heat to 180 degrees Fahrenheit. Stir frequently to prevent burning the milk on the bottom of the pan as well as a skin forming. This is boring so have some good music playing.

When the milk has reached 180 degrees remove the pan from the heat and allow it to cool off to between 108-112 degrees. (It was at this point that a I discovered that the candy thermometer I had purchased was a piece of crap. The inside of the very tip of it became full of condensation making it impossible to see what the temperature was. It came out alright but I'm still going to replace it even it costs a little bit more.)


DOH!

When it's cooled off, take a small amount and stir it into your starter. This will help break up the starter as well as bring down the temperature. Once its well stirred, pour your starter mixture into the warm milk and whisk it up well.

Pour the milk into your containers, place them without lids into the yogurt maker. Put the yogurt maker cover on, turn on the maker and walk away for 8 - 10 hours. When the time is up, take the containers out of the maker, place the lids on the container and refrigerate them for at least 4 hours. Enjoy!

Notes and Results:

• With the goat milk make sure to shake the carton really, really well. I thought that I had but, when I rinsed the carton out, a good amount of fat solids came out. This may have affected the final consistency of the yogurt - making it less firm than I like.
  
• You may be able to use a powdered yogurt starter but the one I found used skim milk from a cow so it was not an option for me. However, most sites I looked at prefer using real yogurt.
• While heating the milk a small skin formed but I stirred it quickly and it seemed to dissolve back into the liquid. If it hadn't dissolved I would have skimmed it off.
• It took about 15-20 minutes for the milk to cool down. Be patient though, if the mixture is too hot it will kill the live culture and you'll be left with...milk.
• The longer the milk incubates, the thicker the yogurt will be. I waited about 8 hours for this batch and got a lovely, mild tasting yogurt with an Elmers Glue like consistency. Next time, I will incubate for 9 hours. I may also experiment with adding powdered goat milk to help with thickening.

Overall, this was a great success. As I said above, the yogurt was tasty but a little thin. This may be a side-effect of goat milk or a result of not incubating long enough or not having enough milk-fats in the mixture. I have 4 jars of yogurt left before I can try again, but I am looking forward to it.

On another note, if you like food blogging you should check out these two sites -the first is mix,mix...stir, stir written by the lovely and talented Carol Peterman with pictures by her equally lovely and talented husband, David. Carol has a true love for food and it's fun to read about her experimentation.

My other recommendation is 28 Cooks which has a lot of great vegan and vegetarian recipes. I mean, this is not just another tofu pup loving site. She has food that makes you want to sit down and eat.