I don't have a yogurt maker and I don't want one. The last thing I need is another kitchen gadget in my tiny kitchen.
I was talking to a friend at a party recently about how to make yogurt without using a yogurt maker. I combined her method with the directions in this recipe (which I used mostly for ingredient proportions).
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Homema...etail.aspxWhat I did differently: I used whole milk instead of 2% because I wanted it to be nice and thick. I didn't follow their method of heating the milk to 165 and then cooling the pan down in a bowl of ice water. That didn't make any sense to me. Instead I heated the milk/powdered milk in the pan until it reached 120 degrees. (I used a candy thermometer.)
Then I mixed about a cup of the milk into the yogurt in a bowl and then poured that back into the pan. I poured those into 3 pint-sized canning jars and put them up to their necks into a pan of water I'd brought to 115 degrees. (I was told that if you get the temp any higher than 120, you'll kill the good bacteria and the yogurt won't set.)
Then I put the whole thing into my oven - more for insulation. I had turned on the oven just until I heard the burners kick on and then I turned it off so it was slightly warm inside. I let the yogurt sit in there for 6 hours. I couldn't resist opening the door and checking it every now and then. I turned the oven on just for a second about halfway through that time.
After 6 hours, I pulled it out. It looked pretty much the same. And then I touched it. It had actually turned into yogurt. At my husband's urging, I tasted it right away, but ew. Warm yogurt? After it cooled in the fridge, it completely rocked. It was so smooth and creamy. I couldn't believe it.
It sounds like a lot of steps, but it really wasn't. Other than my need to hover and check on it every so often, the process probably took 20 minutes. That includes washing the pan I heated the milk in. It was really easy. It makes me wonder why the heck we've been buying yogurt all these years. Pricewise, it comes out to about 1/3 of the price of buying a quart of Horizon yogurt. Unbelievable.