Yogurt Is Low Tech and Easier Than You Think.

I eat more yogurt than anyone I know. Maybe 2 or 3 per day and I don't get tired of it. If you add to that the Kefir I drink that would bring me way above the average. You may think that I eat so much because of some fad yogurt diet or all the talk about probiotics and how good they for you, but that's not the case. I just love the stuff!
Yogurt can have various textures from light to very heavy and creamy like Greek style. Greek style yogurt is more or less a strained yogurt that is actually very thick. A lot of the liquid is drained off leaving you with something that's thicker than sour cream. I am a big fan of the sweet kind with fruit on the bottom, since that's what I grew up on, but I also really like making dips and dressings or marinades with it as well. Yogurt makes a great marinade when it's mixed with herbs or curry for things like lamb or chicken. When it's grilled it caramelizes and makes sort of a crust on the surface.
The other day as I was thinking of another way of making an everyday item I would normally buy at the store, I thought I'd try to make yogurt in the most low-tech way as possible. Armed with only two 6 oz yogurts and a gallon of raw milk I thought I'd give it a go. After a little research on finding the prime temperature range for culture growth I then stumbled upon the one of the coolest ways of incubating without any extraordinary equipment. I took a large IGLOO cooler from the basement and washed it out just to make sure I was working clean. I was gonna use the "cooler" as a "warmer" instead. The insulation works perfectly to hold the necessary temperature of the milk while the cultures are working. The process takes about 6-7 hours.(Don't quote me on that length of time, you should see for yourself. I left the yogurt to set while I went to work.) The one essential part of which I read in the book "On Food and Cooking" by Harold McGee was the heating of the milk. His description of it is that "the milk can be heated to 185F for 30 minutes or 195F for 10 minutes". "Th[is] treatment improves the consistency of the yogurt by denaturing the whey protein lactoglobulin, whose otherwise nonreactive molecules then participate by clustering on the surface of the casein particles. With the helpful interference of the lactoglobulins, the casein particles can only bond to each other in a few spots, and so gather not in clusters but in fine matrix of chains that is much better at retaining liquid in its small interstices." Here is this link to read on yourself: http://books.google.com/books?id=oWqlY5vEafIC&lpg=PP1&dq=harold%20mcgee%20on%20food%20and%20cooking&pg=PA48#v=onepage&q=&f=true
This heat treatment will give you a smooth texture to your yogurt. If you want an even thicker yogurt you can add some dry milk powder to increase the protein and make it more dense.

So just to give you the correct procedure, I'll start from the beginning...

Procedure:

1 Gallon of Milk (unpasteurized)
2 (6 oz) containers of plain yogurt (With Live and Active cultures. This you can read on the side of the container)
1 gallon Pot
1 large Insulated Cooler
A Thermometer that read up to 212F
Containers you want to fill with yogurt and covers.

1. Open the 2 yogurts and them with whisk 2 cups of the milk
2. Pour the rest of the milk into the pot and set it onto a medium high burner to warm. Heat milk up to 195F, hold it for 10 minutes and then remove it. To prevent the milk from scorching on the bottom of the pan, whisk it very frequently and
3. Thoroughly cool the milk down to 125F.
4. When it's ready, add the yogurt and milk mixture and whisk it well.
5. Get hot water from your tap (about 135F will do) and pour it into the cooler.
6. Pour your milk mixture into your container and cover.
7. Set your containers into the cooler with the warm water being sure the water does not come too close to the lids. If so take out some of the water.
8. Close the lid and let it ferment until the yogurt is set. About 6-7 hours.

That is really all you have to do. You can make all the yogurt you want just by buying a couple extra plain ones when you shop! After you make your first one you can continue to make more as long as you save 2 cups of your last batch. Yogurt can get expensive, costing $5.00 for 4 6-oz containers, if it's not on sale. You can make a ton more for that much and choose what goes into it. Save some of your money by making your own yogurt so you can spend it on other things that you can't make yourself.

Coffee: To Roast... or Pop?

There's nothing like a good cup of coffee. Judging from today's culture I'm not the only one who feels this way. Honestly, I'd say that just about one out of five people out and about are either drinking coffee, on their way to get a cup or are just thinking about the next one. I certainly fall into one of those categories. A coffee culture has taken hold of the country and for me I think I know how it's taken hold.

I can think back to when I was very young and my great-grandmother lived the next floor down from us. Among being spoiled with all the sweets and loving gifts a grandmother will always try to sneak past your mother, mine also snuck a little coffee past her as well. I was always interested in grandmas enthusiasm for opening a new can of coffee. As soon as the lid would come off she would tell me to take a sniff and then she would explain what was good about it. How it smelled so good and that was just the way coffee should be before you brewed it. Then I was fascinated by the percolator. I remember how she would put the grounds in the top cup, fill the bottom with water and then set it on the stove. As soon as it boiled, I would watch the coffee bubble up through the glass handle on the lid, and when it no longer appeared it was done. My grandmother liked her coffee light and sweet. When I say light, I mean she put heavy cream in her coffee! Then she would make it sweet, but not too sweet like today's D&D six-count-sugar coffees, but just enough for the perfect bitter, sweet and creamy balance. When I first tried that coffee I was hooked! It was so much better than the Swiss Miss cocoa I was used to drinking. Grandma wouldn't let me have a full cup of coffee right from the start, she would just give me sips until I was old enough, maybe around 10 or 11 years old. (Back in the early 80's that was old enough I guess.) That was enough for me for coffee to set it's teeth in good and deep. As I got older, coffee with grandma became something very cherished and something I reflected on as good moments with her. Yeah coffee, just like other somewhat more meaningful relics in life, can have great meaning if attached to love and family. As the years went on and grandma got older, her techniques for making coffee changed from percolator to instant and dairy went from heavy cream to half and half. No matter how she made her coffee towards the end it was always perfect to me.

I tell this story to bring into light the associations that I have with coffee and how they are what really make it so much more enjoyable. I think most people are like that as well. Whether their associations are just being social or as important as setting the pace for their day. Their kinship with coffee is always much more than a mere drink. It's more like a relationship that is one-sided and not only reliable but dependable. Yes coffee drinkers are fanatics, to some extent to the coffee but also, I think, to the associations and feeling that it conjures up. Over and over it's an enjoyable experience.

Recently, I thought I was pretty smart having an idea on how I could roast my own coffee at home. Coffee is about 3 times cheaper if bought as whole green coffee beans. I realized that coffee roasters toss coffee around while it roasts like my air-pop popcorn maker does with popcorn. So I thought I'd give it a try. I checked my theory on the Internet and sure enough tons of people do it and, not to mention, everyone is selling popcorn machines on eBay as "Popcorn Popper/Coffee Roaster". So, feeling not as smart as before, I continued with the project. I shopped around at all the retail stores and then realized I often see air-pop popcorn machines at the Goodwill store for about $3-$4. I picked one up that was a Presto Poplite (1440 watts) and brought it home to start roasting. I found a local coffee company that sells green beans in 5 pound bags and picked up a blend. The cheaper, the better for starting projects like this. I followed the instructions of the popcorn machine and filled it with just a half a cup of beans. I plugged it in and watched what happened. The machine was a little sluggish blowing the beans around but a few shakes helped move things along. As it kept going the skins of the beans began to blow off so I put a bowl underneath to catch it.(see picture) The beans start popping and little divots fly off of the beans as they get closer to being done. (see picture on right on the paper towel) I simply shut the machine off when I thought it was dark enough for my taste. That was it! It was very easy. I'm sure there are a whole slew of techniques to roasting coffee that are much more accurate and with better tasting results but for the amount of investment I put into it what could I expect. I got a perfectly good coffee with my technique and I dare any standard coffee drinker to tell me it's not as good as any big company's. I like the fact that I could roast as much coffee as I need for the week. That is the best quality coffee you can get, one that is freshly roasted and ground just before being brewed. Maybe one day I can tinker around and make something a little more high-tech but for now I like the ingenuity of using something meant for one purpose, yet used for another. I would encourage anyone out there who is into being self-sufficient and wants to save a little money to give this a try. It's amazing how much money you could spend on coffee at Starbucks if you buy it every day. So do yourself a favor and get the only two things you need: an air-pop popcorn machine and some green coffee beans and get roasting... or do I mean popping.

Just for some additional information, shop on eBay for green coffee beans. I bought a 3 pound bag of green beans for $6.99 plus shipping. Shipping costs suck but it was still cheaper than buying it from my local coffee company.