Sunflower Farm Nigerian Goat Dairy: Yogurt Maker Has Arrived!

Welcome!

I hope you enjoy reading this blog. I will never claim to be an expert on cheese making, goat milking or farming (everyday I learn something new). However, I have learned so much from others who have generously shared their experience in books and on the web and hope to use this blog to pass it on to folks considering goats. I am completely enchanted by these creatures and how they have enriched our life. The amount I have learned since we got our first two goats has been exponential. Now our herd of 21 Nigerian Dwarf Goats is a big part of our daily life and I can't imagine it any other way. This blog will chart the seasons of milking and cheese making as a record for myself and a resource to others who are looking for a window into what it is like to own these adorable mini dairy goats.
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Thursday, July 14, 2011

Yogurt Maker Has Arrived!

We bought a Euro Cuisine YM260 2 Quart yogurt maker and took it for its first ride this week! Tess (my 13 year old chef and daughter) has been waiting for the UPS truck to pull up our driveway every day and when it finally came, you would have thought it was Christmas for how excited she was to get it unwrapped. The idea is that it keeps the yogurt at the perfect temperature (110-115 degrees) for it to turn yogurt like. There all lots of ways to do this, but most of them take more attention. (Ex. Putting jars of hot water in a cooler with the jars of milk and culture.) The great thing about the yogurt maker is that it hod the temperature for 8 hours and we can be sleeping!

•Heat 2 quarts fresh goat milk to almost boiling. Cool to 110.

Separate 2 cups of milk in bowl and add yogurt with live cultures. (We used 1 cup of yummy Plain Stonyfield organic.) Stir. Add to rest of milk and stir well again.

Pour mixture into 2 Qt container and plug in. Let sit for 8 hours.

gather what you would like to put in your yogurt for flavor and wash your storing jars


Put container in the fridge for about 8 hours. When it comes out it will look like yogurt! Now comes the fun part of adding flavor.

Maine maple syrup

jam

add vanilla

strawberry jam thickens the yogurt a bit

Add a tiny scraping of the delicious caviar type seeds inside of a vanilla bean, some vanilla extract and a touch of Maine maple syrup or some homemade strawberry jam to the plain yogurt and ENJOY.

Many folks complain that they find homemade goat yogurt too thin. You can add all sorts of things to thicken your yogurt-gelatin, powdered milk and tapioca. European style yogurt is traditionally less thick, so if you prefer you can enjoy it as is and feel cool and European! I think I'd rather have a thinner yogurt than one full of additives (something cooking at home enables us to avoid!) In our case, using a whole milk yogurt as the starter and fresh Nigerian Goat milk made a yogurt that is a good consistency, so we will not be adding a thing!