Plain yogurt has a bad rap… It’s not sweet, it does not have any additional flavor added, and it just tastes plain…

Have you ever tried good yogurt? It’s definitely not plain. It has all the flavor it needs, and if you add some fruit and granola, it’s the best breakfast ever!

So, how do you get to try good yogurt? You make it yourself of course. This way, you know exactly what went into it, and it also makes sure that you can actually pronounce all the ingredients.

There is a guy on the Internet who seems to be the expert on all things cheese: David B. Fankhauser has a “Cheese Page“. This guy is a Professor of Biology and Chemistry at the University of Cincinnati Clermont College – so I guess he knows his bacteria. Among other things, he has a recipe for yogurt that actually works.

I use Stonyfield fat free organic plain yogurt as starter (one 6oz cup per gallon of milk), 1% organic milk, and a styrofoam box from Omaha Steaks as my incubation chamber.

I’ve tried several different kinds of milk, and my experience is that ultra-pasteurized milk has a strange after taste, so I only used pasteurized milk.

I made my first mozzarella. It came out pretty good:

You can find the recipe at Instructables.com

I use 2% milk. In step 5, I had to wait 45 minutes for a clean break. Once the mozzarella balls are formed, I think it’s necessary to drop them into ice water so that they cool down quickly and keep their shape. I just put them on a place, and because they were still hot and soft, they spread out a bit, and I ended up with mozzarella disks instead of balls.