DIY Yogurt

Does anyone make their own yogurt? 

I'm picking up a Freebie EasiYo yogurt maker tomorrow. Looks just like an insulated flask to me!!  Like this one https://www.easiyonline.co.uk/easiyo-yog...ker-marked
Most of the instructions online use Packets of yogurt mix that you reconstitute with water - about £3 a sachet to make a kilo of yogurt.
However, on the Lakeland site, people say that they use some live yogurt as a starter and UHT milk, which would be a lot cheaper.

Anyone made yogurt this way?

Yes! I just buy a four pack of ordinary natural yoghurt and mix one with a litre of milk.
I once tried using raw milk thinking it would be nicer, disaster - it was liquid and horrible! So I just use basic milk which isn't even fresh milk here !!

Yes had a yoghurt maker years ago, can't remember what we did with it. Didn't use packets of stuff though, just a natural yoghurt as starter and the machine kept it warm till you got yoghurt. Ours was lots of little pots with orange tops in a heated tray.

I've been making yoghurt for just over two years now using a yoghurt maker similar to the one from Lakeland. If you're using fresh milk, heat it to 86°C then let it cool to 45°C, mix in 1-2 tbsp of yoghurt (per litre of milk), mix well and hold at 45°C until it's done (usually takes 4 hours or so if your starter yoghurt is very biologically active, 8+ hours if not). After that it goes in to the fridge overnight and is strained for about 1 hour to thicken it up a bit. The benefit of UHT is that it's already sterile enough to use without heating to 86°C, but the texture may end up different to yoghurt made with fresh milk.

I usually use freeze dried sachets from Amazon as a starter instead of supermarket yoghurt, as I want specific strains of bacteria, but once you've made a batch you can just use the homemade yoghurt as a starter instead. Only very recently I had to re-start from a sachet as my homemade stuff got some sort of contamination and started going fizzy!

You've reminded me that I did have an electric yogurt maker - many many years ago. All I can remember is that it was blue with a white lid that screwed on and a removable inner container. It worked for a while but the results were always a bit iffy - you never knew whether it would come out like yogurt or like milk...............so I gave up on it.
Hope this unheated one is better.

Nope - never tried one. I don't eat yoghurt -I'm not keen on milk by or milk based things?

Though I love cheese! Would love to make some

I don't like milk either but yogurt is more like cheese than milk. If you strain yogurt its like cream cheese, apparently.

I've not made my own yoghurt before, but I have made kefir, or fil as we call it in Sweden. I used some I already had in the fridge as a starter. Kefir can definitely be strained until it's cream cheese consistency, or whatever consistency you prefer. It's lovely
If you don't have muslin, a coffee filter will work too, in smaller quantities of course.

I've always made yoghurt  mines a Salton yoghurt maker I've had it since the 1970's  here's the instructions I use. 

   

I've made my own yoghurt for years. Hugh Funny-Wittingball's recipe never fails. I use a regular big thermos rather than a warm place. I fill it with boiling water and seal before I start, which sterilises it and warms it up, then when the milk is at temperature, I empty it out and pour in the milk. Be warned, it takes very little time for 2 pints of milk to heat to 46C, but (seems like) forever to cool back down, so keep an eye on the thermometer.

https://www.rivercottage.net/recipes/radiator-yoghurt