Day 11: Yogurt and Botany

To make yogurt all you need is milk and a bacteria culture. Here is Lina steaming and stirring goat milk. She recommends steaming it until a skin starts to form on the top. Don't let it boil!

Then, after the milk cools down a bit, you take a cup of bacteria culture and mix it in with the milk. The milk will start to thicken.

The crazy thing is that you can use store-bought yogurt as your starting culture. Make sure it's plain, whole-milk yogurt. Then after you have a batch of home-made yogurt, you just save a cup and use that as your culture for your next batch.
ALSO...you don't need goats or cows in order to make your own yogurt. Whole milk from the store works just fine.

Now, you put the cultured milk to sleep, wrapped in towels in the oven where it's nice and dark.
Make sure you sing it a lullaby.
...
and
...
In 12 hours the milk will wake up as yogurt!

I bet it has interesting dreams...

-Mariel