YOGHURT - How to make it at home



THE CULTURE The most difficult part of making your own yoghurt is obtaining your initial starter culture. The best, by far, is a packet of the preparation used in the commercial home-made yoghurt makers. This is simply powdered milk mixed with a culture of bacteria that is sold at a highly inflated price. Get the plain one, you'll need to add your own flavours later, and only get one, that is all you will need. (if you have one of these devices, there is no need to keep on buying the prepared mixtures. Simply save about 100ml of your yoghurt in a separate jar in the refrigerator and add this to reconstituted powdered milk the next time you wish to make a batch of yoghurt.) If you can't get the above mixture then the next best thing is to use commercially produced 'live yoghurt' as a starter culture. The problem is that much of the yoghurt that is sold as 'live yoghurt' is often dead or so weak as to not be viable. The only thing you can do is to get it as fresh as possible from a busy shop that doesn't have stock lying around on shelves for very long, and, if the first one doesn't work, try another brand. Once you've made your yoghurt, keep 100ml (200ml the first time) in a separate jar in the refrigerator and use this as the starter culture the next time you make yoghurt.

THE CULTURE