Tuesday, September 28, 2010

# 1 Fail : Incubation

The ability to execute something new and unplanned to boost your over confidence is not worth the humility of your hastiness. This picture of a cup containing unidentifiable substances my readers, is my attempt at making home made yogurt. The really sad part about my yogurt making is not the wasted half gallon of milk or 70 cent cup of plain yogurt I used as starter or my parent's entire can of sweetened condensed milk, not even the hours I spent checking, but in the saddest fact about this project was that my mother has been making yogurt for me since I was a wee tot and I didn't listen to her.
Most home made yogurt recipes tell you to heat up the actual mixture and let it sit in a warm place for a couple hours. I did the opposite. I poured my cold mixture of milk into cups and placed them in a hot water bath. A path that I wish I never went down. Seen here in the picture, my cup of starter and can of sweetened condensed milk.. both of which could have been used for so many fail-proof recipes.




Ingredients:
I used 2 litres of 2% milk, rich and creamy, homogenized would make delicious yogurt, I wouldn't know.
1 can of sweetened condensed milk for sweetness!
1 cup of plain yogurt because you need the live active bacteria to grow in your own yogurt.
Easy peasy right? Or so I thought.

I mixed all of those ingredients together in hopes of a tangy Vietnamese style treat.






I filled 11 coffee cups with this delicious cold mixture. The cups placed into my roasting pot. Here comes the biggest mistake...
I poured boiling hot water into the pot so that it filled nearly up to the rims of the cups. The yogurt itself should remain body temperature which means the environment it bathes cannot scorch it!






I even incubated them in a warm oven. The hot water stayed hot for an hour or so, it slowly dropped to warm.. and I noticed 2 hours went by and only the tops of the cups have thickened. It's recommended you let it sit in a warm place for 6-8 hours depending on desired tang and thickness, I wanted tangy thick yogurt. 12 hours went by and I all had was clear yellow liquid with floating white specks. Failed.

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