Homemade soy yogurt... I don't get it?

[Tigerlily]

My whole life, I grew up watching my mom make homemade [dairy] yogurt. It's an incredibly easy process that I could probably do in my sleep even though I have never actually done it.

The basic method is this:
1. Boil/heat a bunch of milk on the stove, higher the fat content the better
2. Once the milk has been boiled, cool it down on the stove for a tiny bit (so it's still hot but not scalding, as if you were gonna drink it as a hot beverage)
3. Take several spoonfuls of already made yogurt (the starter), mix it in the hot milk, and cover the pot with several layers of thick towels. Leave it overnight on the counter.
4. Yogurt has been made.

Now, I'm looking up vegan yogurt recipes for fun. I never made my own soy yogurt because I'm lazy but I want to now. But looking at all these online tips and recipes for soy yogurt is confusing me!

http://www.bryannaclarkgrogan.com/page/page/1999382.htm

This is the confusing thing ever. :dizzy: Why does soy yogurt have to be that confusing? Why can't you just use the same dairy yogurt formula but replace the dairy milk with soy milk and the starter with soy yogurt and maybe a few sprinkles of probiotic powder from a vegan probiotic supplement?

Why wouldn't my mother's tried-and-true Arab yogurt recipe work for soy milk? Is there anything remarkably different? All the vegan websites say soy milk can be replaced for milk exactly. So why not yogurt?

Sorry, kinda venting/confused/flu-ridden.

[Ms_Derious]

Tigerlilly, I've had the same probs with soy yogurt... you know what I've found works? The most simple version possible! Isn't that often the way?

I heat my soy milk to just under boiling point, and then let it cool to warmish. As long as its under 60°C it won't be hot enough to kill the enzymes. Our boiling water into a flask to preheat it... let it stand for 5 mins, drain, and add the soy milk and a generous dollop of soy yogurt. Then, I leave it overnight. This keeps it warm enough for the culture to do it's thing, but not so hot as to kill it.

Almost every time I've done things this way, it's worked. Almost everytime I've done it in my yoghurt maker, or using any of the complex methods I've worken up to a pot of steaming fail.

I don't thicken my yogurt and it seems okay. It's a tiny bit runny, but not enough to cause me any real issues.

I don't know... seems to work for me. Some people seem to make things needlessly complex, or have an over developed sense of fear over anything fermented etc. I take a bit of a lazy assed attitude to steralising things in the kitchen, and I've only ever had food poisoning once in my life, and that was from outside the home.

[Tigerlily]

Thanks, Ms Derious. Similar way as my mother's. :)

I don't care about having thick yogurt either. Homemade yougurt, even the dairy kind, is never as thick as commercial stuff. :)

[Pob]

I've been trying to do this too.

One thing I read is that you need to use sweetened soy milk, or add sugar.

[Tigerlily]

I only buy sweetened soy milk. I'm not anti-sugar in the least..... *pats belly*

[Tigerlily]

But seriously, let me know how your soy yogurt experiment comes along. I plan on trying this sometime this week.

[Kate1978]

You could try adding some dried soya milk powder to your yogurt mix to thicken it up?

I bought some soya yogurt on my trip into big town last week (the probiotic variety). I'm going to have a go at making my own as I have a yogurt maker gathering dust in the cupboard and fancy saving a few pennies. :smile:

Will return to this thread to report back.

[Kate1978]

Well, I did it. Made the yogurt last night, brought some Alpro unsweetened nearly to the boil, took off the heat, added half contents of a large tub of the Alpro probiotic soya yogurt. Stirred in together, poured into jars into the now-no-longer-redundant yogurt maker.This morning the yogurt was set :D

V. important to scald your yogurt making receptacle(s). You don't want other cultures growing in there!

[greeny]

My husband learned how to make soy yogurt from a vegan cooking show from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYMJZkbDH9g,
and here http://www.suprememastertv.com/veg/.

The video is called:
Cooking with Chef & Author Miyoko Schinner: Homemade Vegan Yogurt & Cream Topping

[Ms_Derious]

Recently, I've got hold of some kefir grains, which I've converted to living in soy milk.

No more paying huge amounts for soy yoghurt for me :) The best thing is, you don't need to heat it at all... just leave it somewhere vaguely warm.

If I find they do propergate in the soy milk, I'd be happy to share :)

[Hekaterine]

Ooo, do let us know how you get on!

[phrakshin]

Has anyone here ever just left the okara in your soymilk and cultured everything together?

[Pob]

I mixed half a tub of plain yoghurt with a carton of room temp sweetened soya (sweetened with apple juice), left it out in a warm place (everywhere is warm at the moment) for about 24 hours.

It is more yoghurt drink consistency. So I blended it up with an apple and a peach. Very nice.

Will try the idea of thickening it a bit with cornflour next time.

[patientia]

I've been making vegan yoghurt for a few days now (and eating enormous quantities of it :D).

The problem is that I live in Croatia, there is only 1 brand of vegan yoghurts available here (Sojade), and it's very expensive, because the importer is very greedy. There's no vanilla Sojade Yoghurt. (There's another brand of soy yoghurts, Annapurna, but they are not tasty, and I read somewhere that they use yoghurt cultures grown on animal milk, so I wouldn't buy them even if they were tasty.)

I shop in Slovenia about twice a month, but in smaller towns, where vegan yoghurts usually aren't available. I need to go to Ljubljana to buy Provamel (same producer as Alpro, but organic) vanilla soy yoghurt which is the tastiest yoghurt I have ever eaten. Only a few times have I found it in these small towns, and a few times they had Joya soy yoghurts. They usually just sell Valsoia, which I used to buy until I found out that they use cultures grown on animal milk :(

So, I ate Joya yoghurt shake, didn't wash the cup, filled it with soy milk, put it on the radiator and in about 12 hours got soy yoghurt. I repeated the process, and got fizzy yoghurt. It seems kefir yeast infested my yoghurt. I ate it anyway, but won't make it again, because I don't like fizzy, not even drinks. I bought Sojade plain yoghurt and splashed with boiling water every dish that my yoghurt would touch. I used vanilla soy milk and Sojade and got vanilla soy yoghurt drink. It's very tasty :)

Then I tried Bryanna's recipe:



http://www.bryannaclarkgrogan.com/page/page/1999382.htm


but I got sticky dough which I had to blend with fruit to make it thinner.

So, now I just pour soy milk into sterilized jars (200-400 ml), add 1 tsp of bought soy yoghurt to every jar, put lids on, put jars on the radiator, and from time to time check the acidity with a clean spoon, and when I'm happy with it, refrigerate. I couldn't believe how easy it was.

Now I would like to know how nutrient amounts change with fermentation. I know that sugar decreases, total carbs decrease, probably calories decrease, but how much? Would I be able to calculate them from the nutrients in soy milk (written on the package) and pH value before and after the fermentation? Do bacteria that multiply contain some nutrients in significant amounts? Do they perhaps contain more protein?

[patientia]

I love vanilla soy yoghurt made of vanilla soy milk. Now I started wondering what would chocolate soy yoghurt be like. I have never seen chocolate yoghurt and have no idea of what it could taste like. Had anybody tried chocolate yoghurt? What about Alpro Soya Macchiato yoghurt (making yoghurt of that soy milk)?

I had to throw away one jar yesterday, got kefir again. It seems that happens when I use my homemade yoghurt as a starter. So, now I have to use Sojade yoghurt as a starter, but I'm saving a lot of money anyway.

[khadagan]

I've been making soy yoghurt from store bought soy milk and a dairy free starter as well, but with varying results. I've only used one of the recipes from that bryannaclarkgrogan website so far. Because I didn't have tapioca starch I used tapioca pearls which I ground in a coffee blender first. Now my coffee blender isn't that great, so I couldn't get it so fine, which left me with tasteless lumps of tapioca in the yoghurt. I put it in my dehydrator for about 6-8 hours and the yoghurt was brilliant. I tried to make it with storebought vanilla flavoured almond milk and it was even nicer, bit runnier though.

So I went out to buy tapioca starch as the recipe states to make a really thick smooth yoghurt without the little tapioca lumps here and there. It didn't matter how long I cooked the starch for, the yoghurt kept tasting like cardboard, absolutely disgusting, even with a mountain of sugar or other flavouring in it to mask it, so I threw away some batches.

I'm still searching for a really good foolproof recipe for a nice, smooth and thick yoghurt. I'll definately try the link above with the cashew nuts in there, maybe I'll leave the thickener out this time. I do like thicker yoghurt, so I might try other thickeners like corn starch, although I've heard some bad things about using that. I wonder if potato starch would work? I also bought chocolate soy milk to try, but before I'll try that one I need to have a better recipe first.

Oh yeah, I've tried coconut yoghurt make with coconut meat and kefir before, but didn't like the flavour, it was mostly the fatty sour coconut that I just couldn't get over, so maybe it's just personal. I've not tried the kefir with soy milk or other milks yet, I've just been making water kefir with it.

[Beanie Babe]

Can you make yogurt with other kinds of milk besides soy? (Like, almond milk, rice milk, hemp milk, coconut milk....)

ps...I've never made any kind of yogurt before and wouldn't know where to start. Does one need a dehydrator?

[harpy]

I don't think you need any special equipment, Beanie Babe. If you just leave soy milk in a jug in the fridge for a few days the yoghurt bugs seem to turn up and start making it into yoghurt... You might get better results using an insulated flask etc as described above.

Not sure if you can do it with any other milks. This (http://www.customprobiotics.com/yogurt_starter.htm) suggests not.

[khadagan]

I've only made yoghurt with soy milk, almond milk and fresh coconut, I'm sure you can use other milks as well. You mightneed to add a little bitof sugar for the culture to feed on. I find that almond yoghurt tends to be runnier, I heard that's the case with nut milk yoghurts. You can use bought cultures for yoghurt making or shop bought soy yoghurt for instance as well, as long as the cultures are alive (should say so on the pack). You can leave the yoghurt in the fridge to set, I use a dehydrator since I have one, but a warm place will work as well, but is quicker. When leaving it in a warm place especially I would make sure that everything that touches the yoghurt is scalded, you don't want nasty things in there. And oh yeah with fresh coconut and water kefir I madeCoconut yoghurt, but I think that's too much of an acquired taste for me personally. At the moment I'm using a dairy free starter that I bought online.

[peacefulkitchen]

I just made soy yogurt and it was very simple. I used vanilla silk soymilk, warmed it, put in a starter, poured it in a quart jar and fermented it for about 36 hours. I added some stevia and vanilla and it turned out wonderfully. I looked at Bryanna Clark Grogans recipe years ago and thought it was way too involved. You can find dairy free water kefir starters, they seem to work really well. I wanted to test my recipe with other milks so I used freshly made almond milk and cashew milk and they both worked fine as well.

I did notice though that the freshly made almond and cashew milk fermented MUCH more quickly and only needed about 12 hours to ferment. You also get much less yeild from the almond and cashew milk, there is a lot of water leftover. However, you can use the leftover water to inoculate the next batch of yogurt for about 6 batches and then you need to use more starter. I haven't used the almond milk from the store yet but I would imagine it would work as well.

I have made nut milk yogurts with dairy free probiotics as well and it works but it really doesn't have quite the same taste and texture as yogurt made with an actual starter. If you can't find a dairy free kefir starter you could certainly just use probiotics. The problem with them is that they will not thicken up the soymilk to create a true yogurt texture.

Hopefully that helps a little bit.

[Mymblesdaughter]

I got a yogurt maker for my birthday and have made one batch so far. I used some soya yogurt as a starter but would like to use a vegan starter as I think it will be better. Does anyone know where a could get some from?