PIIMA YOGHURT STARTER INSTRUCTIONS
HOW TO ACTIVATE YOUR FREEZE DRIED YOGHURT STARTER:
To activate the yoghurt, boil 150ml of whole pasteurised milk and allow it to cool back to room temperature. We recommend boiling the milk for the activation stage so that any microbes in the milk are killed off, giving the starter the best chance of success, Put the milk into a jar (ideally 1 litre capacity). Place the sachet of freeze dried yoghurt into the milk and cover the jar to stop dust getting in. Do not cut off the airflow completely. A paper towel fastened with a rubber band works well. Leave it at room temperature for 24-72 hours until you notice that the milk has set. Then proceed with the steps listed below.
INGREDIENTS:
• Pasteurised milk. Whole milk works best. The more fat content in the milk, the thicker the yoghurt will become.
• The activated yoghurt starter culture from the process listed above.
DIRECTIONS:
1. Add 850ml of milk to the jar already containing the activated yoghurt from the step listed above. The milk can be cold and straight from the fridge.
2. Cover the jar again and leave it at room temperature for 12-48 hours until the yoghurt has set. The yoghurt is sensitive to temperature. The warmer it is, the faster it will set. During the summer, check the yoghurt every 12 hours. During the winter, it can take a couple of days to fully set.
3. Once set, place the yoghurt in the fridge to cool. The cooling process will help the yoghurt to thicken. Please note that mesophilic yoghurts never really get that thick and are often more suited as drinking style yoghurts.
4. Before you eat it, remove some to re-culture the next batch. You want roughly one tablespoon of the yoghurt per 500ml of milk you wish to culture.
5. If you can’t eat all of the yoghurt that day, it will keep in the refrigerator for 7 days. You can use it to re-culture other batches during that time.
6. Ensure you re-culture the yoghurt at least once a week to keep it healthy and active.
FLAVOURINGS:
Feel free to experiment with flavouring your yoghurt. The important thing to remember is to always remove enough yoghurt to reculture the next batch before you add any flavourings.
DO I HAVE TO USE DAIRY MILK?
Generally, all of our mesophilic yoghurt cultures will ferment anything with sugar in (soy milk, coconut milk etc). However, this weakens the yoghurt culture. As one off batches most find it works out just fine though. NEVER try and reculture a new batch from non dairy! Make a one off ONLY.
ALWAYS make sure that you have a supply of dairy cultured yoghurt as the main reserve.
People have different levels of success with non dairy milks.
PLEASE NOTE:
If you have more than one fermenting food culture at home, we recommend that you keep them at least 1 metre apart from each other at all times. This is to stop cross contamination of the different cultures. If you are working with dairy in particular, this is very important. Please contact us is you require further assistance with fermenting more than one culture.
