I have screwed up my fair share of Dahi projects in the past. Here’s what NOT to do:
Despite what the old school recipe books say, don’t try to incubate your yogurt inside an oven with the oven light on. Does. Not. Work. It’s conventional wisdom that you can wrap the vessel you’re using in a towel and place it in the oven next to the light, which is thought to generate *just* enough heat to get the right temperature. But that never worked for me.
Here’s the easy way:
Use an Instant Pot. I can’t say enough about how life-changing the Instant Pot has been for us. We literally live off this thing, and use it for much of our weeknight cooking, esp. soups, beans, and daal (lentils). If you don’t have an Instant Pot, get one. This is the model I have.
Use the Yogurt function on the Instant Pot to boil the milk, then let it cool appropriately before adding the culture. Once you’ve added the culture use the yogurt setting again and let it sit for 8-10 hours.
I have used many different starters, and the best one has been Trader Joe’s Greek, plain whole milk yogurt. Buy some at TJ, and when you have 1/2 -3/4 cup or so left, use it to make a batch of homemade yogurt. Boil a half gallon of whole milk (don’t F-around with low-fat) in the Instant Pot as described above and pay attention to the temperature.
The ideal temperature to incubate yogurt is 110 - 114 degrees fahrenheit. You gotta have a thermometer. I use a meat thermometer because that is all I have. It works, but one day somebody nice will get me a thermometer designed for yogurt making like this one from KitchenAid, which I love. I love most KitchenAid things. Staub cast iron is my other kitchen love, a story for another day.
Once the yogurt is 110-114 degrees fahrenheit (I always wait til I see it hit 112) take 1 cup of the warm milk out and stir it with the TJ culture starter. Re-incorporate it, give it a few stirs, and then LEAVE IT ALONE. Don’t touch it, really. Nothing to see for at least 4-5 hours. Around then you’ll see it’s firmed up, the whey is releasing, and you’re seeing yogurt in the making. Wait at least 8 hours and it will be good, but it you like it firmer and tarter like I do - give it 10 hours.
You will have perfect, amazing yogurt. Have it every day. Enjoy!
Behold! The yogurt (video) + Spotify Playlist Bonus
The video in this article is 46 seconds of awe at my most recent batch, which came out perfect if I do say so myself. And the accompanying music undertone (if you can hear it) is an Arti Bhajan for Shiva called up by my girls and their Mama on Alexa as they ate their breakfast this morning. That’s how we roll around here : - ). The Shiva Arti is one of the most common devotional prayer songs you’ll hear in pretty much every Hindu temple, especially so in the City of Shiva — Varanasi (a.k.a. Banaras, a.k.a. Kashi). I made a short playlist on Spotify if you want to check out a few versions of Shiva Arti, and some random Indian Electronica…
Share this post