Well, I'll have to go back to Trader Joe's and look again. I thought they didn't carry goat's milk, just the yogurt.
I just may try my hand at making my own yogurt yet, you guys are having so much fun.

It is pretty fun.

I made a batch of coconut milk/pineapple yogurt. My last try at fruit/milk yogurt I let it go for nearly 24 hours and the fruit sugars were pretty all much consumed. I couldn't taste any sweetness at all from the mango. This time I only let it go about 12 hours and there's still a little pineapple sweetness left and taste too.

I tried to see if I could hold my new yogurt mix at 185 for 15 minutes. Bzzzt! I failed miserably. You really have to watch it like a hawk and not try to wash dishes at the same time.

Hoo boy. I bet. Once that stuff starts to rise, it moves FAST!

I wonder how close to 185 it really has to be. Like if you went higher, to just before the boil, then cut the heat, and just let it sit there, without intentionally cooling it down in any way. You'd have some carryover, probably, and then the mass of the milk would hold the heat for a while. I know it takes a long while to get down to 115, but I wonder how much time it takes to get to say 180 or 175. And I wonder if that's hot enough to have the desired results.

I've got to make a batch tomorrow; I'll try to pay attention to the heating and cooling profiles.

That's pretty much what I did with my creme fraiche experiment (slightly lower temp but same idea) and it worked wonderfully; a really smooth, creamy, thick, tangy product.

Also, I was thinking (after reading about NancyLC's dishwashing-yogurt excercise) that maybe just getting the product there to 185F and then popping it into a pre-heated oven set at 185F to just hold, well that should do the trick. I've got a digital oven setting device and my oven HAS checked out when tested with a manual thermometer...so I have some confidence of the temperature accuracy, though I think I'd set it at 180F because as it cycles, the temperature could spike a bit...

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Now THAT'S a KILLER of an idea! I was moving my pan further and further off the burner, at its lowest setting. Then I let it go too long, it fell too far. So I compensated by turning up the heat a bit and then it boiled after awhile (fortunately it was coconut milk, so no harm done).

My microwave has a probe and you can tell it to bring something to a certain temperature and hold it there. I forgot about that feature.

As promised, I did my experiment. The answer is no, it won't hold without some helping, at least not with just a liter of liquid. (When I get my monster machine that makes 1/2 a gallon, I'll try again and it might just work.)

It only took 12 minutes to heat the half-and-half from refrigerator temperature to 199--this is higher than I usually go, but I wanted to let it really almost boil so there would be more stored heat to maybe hold it. It didn't boil, but I killed the heat at 199 anyway.

At minute 17 it was at 194, and at minute 22 it was already down to 181. I'm sorry, I wasn't watching to see exactly when it hit 185; I didn't think it'd cool down that fast. And I was making a batch of almond butter. Ahem.

In any case, at minute 23 it hit 180, and worked its way down until 1:02 when it hit 118 and I mixed it with my starter yogurt to make the new batch. So it was only in the zone for a minute or two.

Here is proof that I am a geek:

(If you looked at that for more than ten seconds, you're one too!)

Too bad my weight loss charts can't have that nice of a curve on the way down.

If I use a yogurt for the starter that has an expiration date of 2/12/06 and make a batch I need to use that batch within 5 days right? Then if I use 1/2 from that yogurt as a starter what is the expiration date?

Not really. You're starting with mostly fresh ingredients. I think yogurt can keep for a good solid 2 weeks. I think yogurt can keep for up to a month if you don't open it. The bacteria are in suspended animation while they're refrigerated. The lactic acid is what keeps the milk from spoiling.

Mine never lasts that long though.

Actually, you probably did good enough! The goal was what... 196 for 15 minutes?

Did this yogurt come out more solid than typical?

1 - No that's not the expiration date of your homemade yogurt, and
2 - there isn't one, really, except that you set for yourself, kind of...

Expiration date is actually the "best before date" (not a date and time when the product suddenly becomes altered) for commercial operations, and is a guideline for the selling of products only. Homemade yogurt or any product doesn't actually have such a date.

Homemade yogurt should usually "keep" for more than 3 weeks if needed in your refrigerator (mine is very very cold, yours might not be quite as cold). This information comes from an SCD "specialist", here:
http://www.lucyskitchenshop.com/yogourmet.html

ps: commercial starter from a health food store or a commercial batch of natural yogurt with active cultures is needed occasionally, to "refresh" or strengthen your culture. You can continue to make yogurt from your own batches, batch after batch, but it's a "live" thing, and the quantity and strength of those live organisms will vary because of quite natural variation in the "growing" process and in the "generations".

Nah. But since I make it with half and half, it's always as thick as Greek yogurt anyway.

Well, maybe the electron guy is full of it!

Actually, I've made pretty high fat yogurt and it came out pretty runny.

Huh. Did you make a big batch? Was it runny from the start?

I've noticed that yogurts usually hold together fine until you break into them; once you take a serving out, or even just a spoonful, that void will be full of whey the next time you open the container.

No, it wasn't the breaking issue. More like it just never set up that hard to begin with. It was just a quart.

You can probably get rid of the "break" issue by draining your yogurt. Greek yogurt doesn't get that whey breakdown (as much) as normal because I they strain it. At least, the greek yogurt I got was strained.

Miss that stuff!