Raw Milk Greek Yogurt
Raw milk Greek yogurt is a super simple recipe that results in a delicious and healthy probiotic-rich food. With just two ingredients and a little bit of time, you can save money by making yogurt from scratch with this low-mess recipe.
Equipment
- 1 quart size mason jar
- 1 crockpot
- 1 bowl
- 1 fine mesh strainer
- 1 thermometer (optional)
Ingredients
- 1 quart raw milk
- 1 tbsp yogurt (from a previous batch of homemade yogurt or from store-bought yogurt with live active cultures)
- water
Instructions
- Pour cold raw milk into a quart size mason jar. Close with a lid and place in your crockpot.
- Fill your crockpot with water until it reaches the top. The water should be below the lid of your mason jar. Set the crockpot to warm.
- After 2 hours on warm, take your mason jar out of the crockpot and add in 1 tbsp of yogurt. Stir in well. Place your mason jar back in the crockpot and leave the crockpot on warm.
- After about 6-8 hours (timing may vary), the raw milk should now be cultured into yogurt. If you take the mason jar out of the crockpot and tilt it, you should see that it has solidified. Whey is commonly noticed.
- Allow your mason jar yogurt to cool on the counter. After it has reached room temperature, place in the refrigerator overnight, or for 12-24 hours.
- After refrigeration, strain your yogurt over a fine mesh strainer, collecting the whey in a bowl underneath, for at least an hour. The longer you strain, the thicker the yogurt will be.
- Store your homemade Greek yogurt in a sealed container in your refrigerator and enjoy! Be sure to save enough yogurt for future batches and re-culture every 7 days.
Notes
- Most yogurt recipes recommend heating your milk to about 160-180 degrees Fahrenheit and then allowing it to cool down to about 110 degrees before adding your starter culture or previous batch of yogurt. Since I want to keep my milk raw, I never heat my milk that high. Therefore, I never go above the warm setting on my crockpot.
- If you add your yogurt culture to hot milk, the bacteria will die. If you add your yogurt culture to cold milk, the bacteria won’t be able to culture it and it will stay milk. You want a happy medium of a nice warm temperature of about 100-110 degrees.
- You can use a thermometer to monitor the water temperature in your crockpot.
- I recommended starting this process either first thing in the morning and placing your mason jars of yogurt in the refrigerator before you go to sleep at night, or starting this a couple of hours before bed and letting it culture in the crockpot overnight and placing the jars in the refrigerator in the morning. The one thing you don’t want to do is start this in the middle of the day.
