Easy Yogurt

Archeologists and geneticists are discovering that early people in Europe were keeping dairy herds for nearly 2,000 years BEFORE most of the population developed the mutation to digest lactose. Why were early Europeans keeping cows and goats for milk when the lactose would have made most adults sick?

The answer appears to involve fermented milk in the form of yogurt and cheese.  The fermentation of milk involves a culture that digests the lactose (sugar) and produces lactic acid (which most lactose intolerant adults can eat digest comfortably). 







Yogurt comes in many varieties: 

• Thermophilic is the most common in American grocery stores.  This culture requires keeping the milk and culture at a low heat for some hours to activate the culture.
• Greek yogurt and its cousin labneh are common in the Middle East and now are popular in the United States.  This type of yogurt is strained to press out some of the liquid.  The completed product is thicker in texture than other yogurts.  Labneh has the consistency of a soft cheese.

But I am blogging today to tell you about mesophilic yogurt.  Specifically, I use a mesophilic culture called Viili.  It is thought to have originated in Sweden, but today is considered a Finnish yogurt culture.  As with making kefir in my previous post, mesophilic yogurt ferments milk at room temperature.  No heating required!

Easy Peasy Instructions:

• Mix 1 cup of whole milk with a packet of Viili mesophilic yogurt culture (can be ordered online from Cultures for Life) in a mason jar.
• Place a coffee filter or paper towel over the mason jar and allow to sit 24 hours (usually 48 hours required for the first batch when the culture is reviving) at room temperature on your kitchen counter.
• Once the yogurt thickens until it looks, moves, and tastes like yogurt, move to your refrigerator. 
• Save 1 tablespoon of the yogurt and enjoy eating the rest. 
• Start a new batch by mixing 1 cup of milk and 1 tablespoon of the first batch in a mason jar.  If you want larger batches, add 1 tablespoon of your yogurt per 1 cup of milk.

Be sure to feed your new yogurt culture friends.  If you do not give them fresh milk at least every 7 days, the culture will starve and die.