What brand did you buy? I only tried one or two different brands. 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 several times. It 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.
Also, I tried using UHT milk and got a yogurt drink-like consistency, not even close to a set yogurt. Tasted just fine, though. Perhaps I’ll try again, though, with a longer culturation. The temperature in UHT is very high. HTST (High Temperature Short Tim) is typically lower. Flash pasteurization – Wikipedia so bacteria is neutralized but the proteins are unaffected. This dairy uses both treatments and explains how they are different.
Rootstock | What’s the Difference Between Pasteurized and Ultra-Pasteurized Milk? | Organic Valley
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