It never in my life occurred to me to make my own dairy products but in these times, it makes sense, mostly because I no longer trust our food supply. So, I set out on this path of learning how to make dairy products.
I don’t have a cow or a goat although I really wish I did, and I hope to one day be able to do that. The closest I can get right now is to buy into dairy shares because Colorado has made it illegal to purchase raw milk in the state (makes zero sense to me, but I assure you it has nothing to do with safety and everything to do with the almighty dollar and who is allowed to collect those dollars and how)
Yogurt! I love it and you can make it at home with some milk and a tablespoon of yogurt. I bought some organic grass fed, whole milk and a small container of organic plain yogurt and went to work making my own. Now that I have it on hand all the time all I do is take a tablespoon from my jar and add some milk to make my next batch.
You start by warming up the milk (1 quart) and yogurt (1 tablespoon) to 180 degrees then turn off the heat and let it drop to about 110 degrees. The you pour it into mason jars and put it in the dehydrator for about 10 hours. Why the dehydrator? Because it’s the easiest way to maintain 110 degrees which is needed to make the yogurt.
I have researched other methods online and there is a countertop method or an oven method where you just leave the light on in the oven to create the warmth needed to get it to yogurt, but I haven’t tried it. The dehydrator works well for me.
If you want to take it another level you can make 2 quarts of yogurt (1 half gallon) keep one as yogurt and turn the other one into sour crème (more on that in another post) or you can make several and turn a couple of those sour cremes into cheesecake!
I think it is so awesome to be able to make my own …. Well, everything! A note about milk shares, milk shares are where you pay an amount of money to a rancher to help them maintain their herd. You are basically a co owner of the herd. Then you receive a share of the milk. If you have an interest in making your own milk, cheese, yogurt and more you can do an internet search for dairy's in your area that do milk shares.
The down side to doing this is you will spend a few hours processing your raw milk and making things when you share comes in! Pasteurized milk, that you buy in the grocery, works just fine too!
Do you make your own dairy products? Please share!
Comments will be approved before showing up.
Material supply remains good. We haven't had any issues not being able to get items however we have good inventory on most things so we haven't had to order much.
