Gentlemen and ladies,
 
My hope is to submit a bible of probiotic culture because of the importance in fighting our battle for health and a long life. In ancient cultures, daily dietary intake of a probiotic was considered one of the 7 secrets to long life. If any of you gets into this with success, I done my contribution.
 
Hardware props needed are one of those Igloo type lunch coolers and 4 wide mouth Mason jars with lids. Large pan with a lid that will take the gallon volume for preheating. Thermometer optional. And I guess a stove.
 
Start with a gallon of fresh whole 4% milk and add a heaping teaspoon of some kind of sugar or honey, and about 1/4 teaspoon salt. Add 1 cup powdered dry milk.
 
Heat to just short of boiling or when the milk starts to simmer (don’t let the milk burn on the bottom of the pan. Do this preheating to pasteurize the milk and kill off bad bacteria).
 
Allow the mixture to cool to about 115 degrees. (Clean finger in milk to count of 10 until it is too hot, or use a yogurt thermometer). Add 3 heaping tablespoons live yogurt and stir in well once the temperature is down. (Nancy’s, Activia, Mountain High…anything live).
 
It does take some time for the temp to cool down requiring monitoring periodically. Once mixed, it will take maybe 10 hours to complete, but this phase is on autopilot.
 
Put mix into 4 clean wide mouth mason jars and close lids. Place jars in the insulated cooler and fill the cooler with hot tap water up to the rims of the jars. Do not disturb the cooler for at least 8-10 hours or more. Yogurt made at night before sleeping will usually be ready to refrigerate by the next morning.
 
You can take a few tablespoons of the new yogurt and freeze it for the next starter. New batches from the same starter should be used in a new mix with a different sugar, or something different. The same mix will eventually weaken the end product.
 
A few tips, tricks, observances, philosophical spins…next installment whenever... This is however the basic roadmap.

 
John
 

Thank you John  This technique worked amazing  There was no thermometer so used your 10 second clean finger rule I did one half the volume to test it  We are back in Atlanta for the next seminar There are storms but much warmer I wanted to take the yogurt with me in the mason jars from Chicago for an example  We got as far as the metal detector and xray  They blocked the yogurt because it was more than 4 oz  The jerks gave me the option to eat it all there before boarding  The friendly skies are not the friendly I remember  I can see me on the front pages as the Yogurt Bomber
 
I have a question  I was trained that the probiotic culture was endless allowing a teaspoon of the previous batch to go on to infinity  You are saying that there is a fatigue factor What gives with this and why is it not mentioned in other advices

Hey Jyoti,
 
Hope you are in reverie with your stint of life in the fast lane, although like you have experienced, the friendly skies aren’t friendly no more.
 
I disagree (without having the whole context of the comment) about yogurt longevity in a same field through the generations.
 
The bugs will grow forever, but environmental stress is necessary. Without being challenged, they waste away. All you have to do to substantiate this is to move your starter into the same environment several times. You will notice that after about the third transfer, things are getting weaker.
 
I wanted to get the dirt road map out to you since you seemed to need it quick, but was wanting also to add some tricks and tips. Some philosophical stuff. The philosophy tirade was, is next, but dealing with the broader message of growing a simple bunch of yogurt. Lesson we can all learn from.
 
Consider that some decades ago, there was a low flying airplane over some part of England. From the sky, they saw a “fairy ring” of mushrooms spread out over a half a mile. They got a major hard on and calculated that the organism generated by a single spore was several thousand years old, possible the oldest entity on earth. Possibility of life immortal.
 
The dudes thought that they could send down a time machine capsule of immortal life. They took the “mycelium” sample and set it up in a time chamber with every a mushroom could possibly want. The thing went gang busters for about 3 months and then started to fade away. They realized that in nature, the organism is continually struggling for survival. Give it an easy life and it take away the struggle, it can not prosper by taking away the fight to survive.
 
In Romania, it is the custom to grow your homemade yogurt. Tradition is however to not keep your own starter. You pass the culture on to your neighbor and receive your starter from another neighbor. The viability is challenged by a different environment, and the culture stays strong.
 
Says something cardinal about life, to me anyway.
 
John
 
 

 I am still in Atlanta for a couple more lectures  The yogurt creation guide is a big hit with my clients and with my indirect boss  You said there were tips and tricks beyond the basics to refine the process  Waiting for the fine print

Sorry Jyoti, was overwhelmed by the deluge of responses and fan mail. Imagine that in a cyberspace realm where BECAN is king, that a wimpy yogurt recipe would produce such a landslide of support and interest...
 
Until then, few tips, tricks, observances…
 
You do not have to be in an absolutely sterile realm for this to work, but you are creating an environment to grow bacteria. Most stray bugs are below the heat barrier, but something nasty could get loose if you don’t keep things clean. Keep the milk covered while cooling and only test the temperature with clean utensils or fingers. Mason jars rinsed with hot tap water is sufficient.
You have a lot of control over the nature of the end product by varying heat. Obviously too hot or too cold won’t work but within say 98 to 120 degrees or so, the same bug will give a different yogurt. Borderline too hot or too cold and the yogurt will have a blah blandness like eating Elmer’s glue without the sweetness. Higher working temperatures otherwise produce a product that is more tart and with more whey separation on top. The whey can be used in cooking. Cooler temps produce a more bland yogurt with less separation. Would advise first trials to target the 115 degree mark. Then experiment on the edge.
 
Addition of the salt sugar and dried milk powder to the whole milk base is optional but makes the mix more firm when done.
Once everything is mixed, try not to disturb or shake the stuff as it can interfere. That’s why most home warriors set it up for night time cultivation.
 
Anything that is live will work, but make sure your source indicates live active cultures. I tend to avoid the sale store brands because they use ground up horse feet and starch to clot the stuff, allowing them to use only a small amount of actual yogurt. Add enough sugar and industrial chemicals to the clotted corpse and you think you are eating something good for you. Some of these brands are pasteurized after the fact to kill off everything and extend shelf life. These are worthless and you just lost your investment in a gallon of milk and your time wasted.
 
There are brands you can use like Activia that are a mono culture. Extremely vibrant, but all their line contains artificial sweeteners. These chemicals are so strong on our brain that even though you have done a dilution worthy of homeopathic titrations, the result will still be almost as sickening sweetened as the original. For variety I otherwise use plain cultures with multiple sources. My favorite is Nancy’s brand although this may be hard to obtain outside Oregon USA. Insane power in the hands of the creator is that you can mix and match different sources and come up with your own formula through trial and error. Scandinavians are way beyond us US yanks in this science, and have been for decades. Go to the store and purchase your refined gradient of probiotic by the identifying number across a vast selection.
 
If you like the stuff with fruits, sugar, additives, add them later, not in the original processing.
 
The Greek yogurt fad. Greater number of probiotics, more protein which they properly claim. Better for you, something exotic. Actually just made out of the normal rotgut cultures. They culture and squeeze out the liquid making it more dense, thus “Greek”. Sorry to bust the myth.
Acceptable probiotics… Uh… There are at least 5 genetic lines of probiotics that would work well in yogurt and deliver the real health benefits. Problem is that some of them are cultured residents in our colon and would likely affect a company’s sales if they were used. We tend to stick with Lactobacillis and not include the other goodies that sound really great on paper but may cause a mental disturbance if you were staring into a spoon and thought about the source.
These bugs have undergone a lot of selection, and hard work to come up with something that has health benefits and is also palatable. All Lacto’s are not the same. If you are taking a pill probiotic, the big question in an unregulated market is if the non refrigerated bottle of capsules you just forked out 10 dollars for is any good. Simple test. Sacrifice one of the capsules in a cup of warm milk overnite. In the morning, you should have yogurt. Will smell like and have the consistency of a cultured product, but obviously nothing you would want to eat. Verification procedure we used in the hospital in selecting our source for patients, making certain that the pill was viable.
 
Have been in the ring for a long time with this. Any questions needed for your presentations, will be more prompt to help if I can. Good luck in your travels.
 
John

If you have never seen this before, take a look...
 
https://www.cornucopia.org/scorecard/yogurt
 

Thank you Rob. The link at the bottom of the page is quite interesting and unfortunately quite true.
 
John