a bowl of yogurt with a spoon in it

I only tried one or two different brands of milk. The reason I stick with the one milk I was successful is it seems work every time. I can become confident and tweak the process: when there are too many variables, it can be hard to know where one is failing.

I started with Easiyo yogurts and the maker. Didn’t like the yogurt (just so sweet, too many thickeners, too) but loved the methodology. So I bought some fresh pots of yogurt from the supermarket and tried a variety of those. No sweeteners or thickeners (no E numbers anyway). That almost always worked but the variable then was the milk. I tried different kinds and HTST seems to almost always work, except when I changed to a new brand… I was back to drinking yogurt. So back to the previous brand, and of course, no problem.

I was able to culture 2nd~5th generations from the first batch as well. I didn’t go beyond that to keep the culture as fresh as possible. I’m now freezing a first generation batch as starter. So my next yogurts will be technically 2nd generation. I’ve already tested it once. Seems to have no problem. Again, I won’t play with the milk until I’m confident the frozen starter works well enough.

I don’t use low-fat or no-fat milk, no enhancers or thickeners, too. In fact, after making it myself… I see most supermarket yogurt as basically junk food. LOL! Oh, well.

As a PS, I also tried once with soy milk. It was quite successful, except for the taste. The soya milk which was nice had a funky taste, I couldn’t disguise even with vanilla essence. Since it’s not something I’m wildly interested in, I haven’t tried again. But who knows…? Other ‘milks’ should also work, too.