This is the lowest price I have seen on this yogurt maker. I have one of this and use extensively. Works like charm if you follow the instructions. Never have to buy yogurt again!! I hate the churned expensive yogurt we get here in grocery stores. This homemade yogurt is how it (yogurt) should taste like.
I bought this as a small chistmas present for my friend for $12.99 a few days ago and saw this new lower price - called Amazon and got price adjustment right away.
- Forgot to mention: As usual, FREE shipping for Prime members and $6.17 otherwise for standard shipping
crazypalooza said: almost bought it to add to the fondue, orange juice squeezer, coffee grinder, mixer and ab-cruncher which all sit here after the first use...
HA, I have one of these, the BEST yogurt maker....but yogurt (plain quarts) and milk cost about the same...and there is no taste difference I could tell. So, it sits there and keeps my juicer company. Good price though.
bought this as a holiday gift for a new/young family. I think they will like it for its frozen/non frozen capabilities as well as the health factor.
I have prime and love it. :-D
momov
Member
posted: Dec. 13, 2007 @ 10:11p
I have one of these and it works very well. In our stores, the cheapest good yogurt is $2.99/quart or ~$12/gallon. Milk varies from $1.67 to $3 per gallon. If your family eats/drinks 1-2 quarts per day, you do the math. Green for OP.
I bought one last time they were $10, and it works really well, if you follow the tips that reviewers have suggested at Amazon. Organic yogurt is even more expensive than regular, and so I use organic milk. Since Costco doesn't sell organic yogurt, this saves me a trip to Safeway or Trader Joe's to get the organic yogurt!
Not TCing, but if $11.99 is too rich for your blood and/or you just don't know if it's something your use, you can easily make yogurt in a thermos. All you have to do is pre-warm the thermos, raise the milk to the right temperature, and mix in a spoonful of yogurt w/ live cultures. If it's not a very insulated thermos, wrap it in a towel and you're set!
Bought one for $10 from Amazon a couple of months ago. I got this so I could eat yogurt daily. With fruit, I think it costs about $0.20 per serving. The most difficult part is heating up to 190F & cooling the milk (I use Lactaid) down to 105F. You could use powdered milk, which only requires heating up to 105F. I wish the unit had a built-in thermometer or even a deluxe unit that would handle all of the heating.
How are you able to make yogurt with lactose free milk? I tried it with Lactaid milk, it didn't work. Apparently the bacteria needs lactose to make yogurt...
dkong said: I love Brown Cow yogurt, with cream top. Can this machine make such yogurt?
Yes, you just get some plain (no fruit or flavoring added) Brown Cow without the cream as your starter. You can also duplicate any of the commercial yogurts that have specialized yogurt cultures if you can find plain versions of them.
EmptyWallet said: How are you able to make yogurt with lactose free milk? I tried it with Lactaid milk, it didn't work. Apparently the bacteria needs lactose to make yogurt...
I wondered about this as well & couldn't find anything written on the subject, so I just tried it. I assume that the culture would consume all of the lactose sugar in regular milk if let it work long enough, but I'm really sensitive to lactose & don't want to try this. The yogurt just needs the sugar in the milk, so instead of lactose sugar there's a different sugar (which is why Lactaid tastes sweeter). I've used 2% Lactaid but decided to move to whole milk Lactaid for thicker yogurt. I let it run anywhere from 5-8 hours (the longer time makes thicker, more tart yogurt).
You can also thicken by hanging the yogurt in cheese cloth which makes "Greek" yogurt, or if long enough make yogurt cheese. You can keep the whey that drips out & use it somewhere else I guess. Whey protein is supposed to be really good, so I'd definitely look into reusing it.
My mom makes gallons of yogurt at a time without any such machine. If I remember correctly, she heats up the milk, then pours it into another canister and adds some yogurt. Then wraps it all up in a couple of blankets (so that it stays warm) for a couple of days.
Its the best tasting yogurt I've ever had. You might consider searching for more exact instructions online.
Edit: Next time I speak with her I will probably get the instructions and try it out. Edit2: Try this approach: http://www.make-stuff.com/cooking/yogurt.html
just boil the milk in a stock pot add yogurt and wrap pot with blankets. few hours or overnight you have yogurt. save a little bit of the yogurt and repeat process.
shanghei
Senior Member - 1K
posted: Jan. 30, 2008 @ 1:04p
wish i knew about the blanket trick before ordering this thing.
Can one make very thick greek-style yogurt in this sort of machine?
I've just moved here from England and Rachel's Dairy organic greek-style yogurt from Wales (it is totally delicious!) was a daily part of my life there, but I can't find anything close to it here. I even wrote Rachel's Dairy to ask if they supply any stores in the US with it. They said they don't.
The closest I can get in my town is one supermarket which sells Fage greek-style yogurt (from Greece) which is at least whole milk but it is in a tiny carton, is not cheap, and is not organic (I greatly prefer organic dairy foods).
So if I could make it myself, I'd probably do that. Not sure about the thermos/blanket idea; would prefer something automatic and easy.
NantucketSunrise said: Can one make very thick greek-style yogurt in this sort of machine?
For greek yogurt, make the yogurt as described in this thread. Then, you place in a strainer or a cheese cloth, put it over a bowl and let it sit for a day or so. The longer it sits, the thicker it would be. You are just draining out the liquid, and leaving the thick creamy yogurt behind.
Thank you for the instructions on how to get Greek-style yogurt! I will give that a whirl.
By the way, when I first posted on this thread the machine was 11.99 on Amazon and I added it to my Amazon cart. A couple hours afterwards (now), I checked my cart in order to buy it, and the Amazon price for the Salton yogurt maker had gone up to 20.84 - no thanks, Amazon! I'll buy Fage yogurt for a while longer and see if the price for this machine goes anywhere near the OP's price of 8.99.
just boil the milk in a stock pot add yogurt and wrap pot with blankets. few hours or overnight you have yogurt. save a little bit of the yogurt and repeat process.
Thanks for the tip, since the price is back up to 20 bucks!
dealwiz said: dkong said: I love Brown Cow yogurt, with cream top. Can this machine make such yogurt?
Yes, you just get some plain (no fruit or flavoring added) Brown Cow without the cream as your starter. You can also duplicate any of the commercial yogurts that have specialized yogurt cultures if you can find plain versions of them.
But can I make it that way from scratch? Brown Cow is pretty steep.
You are absolutely right. You normally don't need this to make yogurt. Millions of families in India make yogurt everyday and they will laugh at the idea of using an appliance like this.
BUT BUT BUT BUT,
if you live in the colder areas (I live in the Northeast), it is a bit difficult to make yogurt during winter times. Since Oil is expensive, the house stays quite cold and is not warm enough to make yogurt. (Don't have a fireplace or a gas stove either).
Before coming to this country I would have laughed at the idea, but the $10 that I spent on this has paid off big time. Now, I can make yogurt in less that 4-5 hours, virtually guaranteed.
> My mom makes gallons of yogurt at a time without any such machine. If I >remember correctly, she heats up the milk, then pours it into another canister >and adds some yogurt. Then wraps it all up in a couple of blankets (so that it >stays warm) for a couple of days. > >Its the best tasting yogurt I've ever had. You might consider searching for more >exact instructions online. > >Edit: Next time I speak with her I will probably get the instructions and try it >out. >Edit2: Try this approach: http://www.make-stuff.com/cooking/yogurt.html
dkong said: dealwiz said: dkong said: I love Brown Cow yogurt, with cream top. Can this machine make such yogurt?
Yes, you just get some plain (no fruit or flavoring added) Brown Cow without the cream as your starter. You can also duplicate any of the commercial yogurts that have specialized yogurt cultures if you can find plain versions of them.
But can I make it that way from scratch? Brown Cow is pretty steep.
Ditto...I can't quite figure out how you could make that, with the cream on top...
dealwiz said: ... You can also duplicate any of the commercial yogurts that have specialized yogurt cultures if you can find plain versions of them.
Can you use an acidophilus powder (or other probiotics) as the source for the culture, and therefore make cheap probiotics out of the expensive stuff from the vitamin store?
Some probiotics are $1 per capsule, so it would be great to make it cheap by the quart.
In the past month, I've seen the price for this on Amazon range from 12.99 to 24.99 and back again. Last week I got it for 14.99, and then a few days afterwards I saw it on there for 12.99, so I got the $ difference back from Amazon. Today, it is over 20.00. So if you are in the market for it, just wait a few days and the price will probably cycle around to one you are comfortable with.
Regarding the question about the acidophilus pills - in the extensive set of mostly positive Amazon reviews (398 or so), many users of this machine talk about their recipes and hints for making yogurt. Some talk about using these pills from the pharmacy. One (at least) reports that this is the way she gets the starter for her yogurt. It would be worth a try. She grinds up 2 pills and pops them in the milk.
I made my first batch of yogurt last night and something went wrong. I only got ever-so-slightly-thicker milk after 12 hours of processing and 2 hours then 5 more hours in the fridge. I follow directions pretty carefully so I don't know quite what went wrong, but I have 4 thoughts -- -I didn't sterilize the equipment before using (with boiling water), I just washed things with soap and water. The Salton booklet says to wash everything (obviously) but the Amazon people say to sterilize everything - so maybe my cleaning job was not good enough to get rid of all the impurities. Especially with the wire wisk that I used to stir the milk while it got to scalding - maybe the wisk wires at the join of the handle were hiding some little buggers that defeated the yogurt culture. -I used as a starter about 2 tablespoons of yogurt from a package of yogurt that had already been open about 4 days (though the expiration date is not until next week) and on Amazon they say to use everything as fresh as possible. Next time I'll use a brand new starter. -Also, generally the recommendation is to use 1/2 cup of starter, but I didn't have that much and also some reviewers say only a tablespoon is fine, so that's why I thought 2 tablespoons would be okay but maybe that amount was not enough. -Some of the reviewers say that the Salton machine stays at 110 degrees for a few hours and then goes up to 120 which apparently (?) kills the yogurt bacteria and sends the congealed stuff into turning liquid again. My small cooking thermometer fits into the machine between the glass jar (my own) and the side of the machine, so I kept it in there to double-check. When I went to bed it was humming away at 110 but when I got up it was at 120 inside the machine, so maybe that killed my cultures during the night (I am not sure). I'll give it another try. The raving reviews by the Amazon purchasers motivate me to figure it out!
A question if anyone knows the answer: Would this machine be good to slow-cook Irish oatmeal in? If so, how long would I leave a serving of Irish oatmeal to cook (it takes 30 mins cooking on the stovetop).
Chilber
Member
posted: Feb. 23, 2008 @ 8:36p
I like using these. If I leave the yogurt in for 24 hours, all of the lactose is turned into lactic acid and has 703 billion friendly bacteria per cup. That beats the heck out of taking probiotic capsules.
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