"Jonathan Sachs" > wrote in message
...
> On Fri, 19 Oct 2007 09:47:46 -0400, "Dee Dee" >
> wrote:
>
>>Don't bother using your just-made yogurt for a starter.
>>Buy a good brand of yogurt from the grocery store. Look at the date. It
>>should last a couple of weeks.
>
> That's puzzling to me. It seems self-defeating. I bought the yogurt
> maker to avoid having to pay outrageous prices for store-bought
> yogurt; it doesn't make sense to have to buy yogurt in order to use
> it.



It works for me, when other methods are too if-fy. Using 5 teaspoons out of
a container of yogurt doesn't seem costly to me to make a quart of yogurt;
if it does fail, then you've lost your milk, too; unless you find another
use for it.

5 teaspoons each time out of the price of a large container of yoghurt - you
do the math. How many teaspoons can you get? A lot.
I probably buy the most pricy of yogurts, and I consider it thrifty.

If you don't use all of the container of yogurt in its date stamp time, eat
it. If your method doesn't work, you've lost the cost of the milk, also.

>
> I haven't worked out the numbers, but I would think that doing it that
> way would cost at least as much as using commercial starter for each
> batch.


I've tried commercial starter. I don't like it; it gives inconsistent
results. And I waste the milk I use if it doesn't work. I want a
tried-and-true method.

>
> On another point, my yogurt maker's instructions said to heat the milk
> to just below boiling and let it cool off to about 100°F. You said
> you warm it to that temperature, no higher. Why do you do it that
> way? Do you have problems with "wild" bacteria?

Perhaps your instructions want you to heat to just below boiling point so
that you will be sure to have pasteurized milk. I believe pasteurized milk
is about 170º. I do it the way I do it because it works. Also I don't
want my milk pasteurized because I use raw milk. But pasteurizing your milk
should not be a concern as you probably are already using pasteurized milk.


I don't know about problems with wild bacteria.

HTH,
Dee Dee