I have been thinking about making home made yogurt for some time now. I was really excited when I got my Crockpot Express for Christmas. Anyone who knows me knows that I LOVE LOVE LOVE my crockpots… yes multiple… I have 4 all together if you count the express. The Crockpot Express is like a crockpot and a pressure cooker at the same time…. lots of buttons.. and since I love kitchen gadgets this excites me. Well it’s July and I finally got around to trying it. I think I was a little intimated by it, but my kids eat so much yogurt that is defiantly one of those items on the grocery budget that does some damage. I am so glad I decided to give it a try… but let me tell you this has been one of my biggest disasters ever… from start to finish the whole thing was a bit of a mess. I am absolutely going to do it again… so worth it in the end. Honestly, it was comical. I was actually kind of glad it turned out to be a disaster because now it’s a funny story to share with you. Here’s what happened.

First off… like almost a month before I actually got around to making this foolish yogurt I ordered milk from a local company to make it. My cousin has purchased milk from them for years and loves it. I looked them up because I was intrigued. The whole milk isn’t skimmed so there is more cream. I figured this would be great for yogurt because it would be thicker so less fussing with it. The milk was definitely more expensive than the store, but I thought local, creamier, etc. plus I could get twice the yogurt I get at the store for the same cost as one bottle so I decided it would be worth it. I ordered, got my delivery, loved the milk… like could use it instead of half and half so I was happy. The only problem was I didn’t make the yogurt. A few weeks go by and my next order came while I wasn’t home. My husband was fortunately and put it away for me. This was great because I didn’t have to worry. But I never checked to see what side of the fridge the new milk was and which the old was. So I started using the new milk and let the other milk expire. Not going to lie I was upset that the expiration was so soon, but I guess that’s what happens when you don’t check. SO I wasted like twenty dollars worth of milk. So much for saving money huh?

I realized that the other delivery needed to be used pretty quickly. It felt like now or never to make that yogurt with that pricey milk. I remembered the directions said that you needed to cool the pot in a sink of cold water, which meant that before I started I needed to do the dishes. No big deal. The only problem is it was getting later and later in the day. The yogurt needs to incubate for at least 8 hours, I knew this was going to be on the later side of my day but I felt confident. I would get it started in my Crockpot Express , and while it was heating up I would do my dishes and we would be golden. I guess you could say I was a little eager to get started. I had washed the inside of my Crockpot to make sure everything was perfect, but I didn’t but it back into the base. Apparently I was so excited to get started I didn’t check that before getting started.

So apparently when you don’t but the actually bowl of the crockpot in it won’t hold liquid. Crazy huh? I lost about 1/4 of a gallon of milk, which milk not sound like much but it was everywhere! I literally was laughing as I was saying oh no oh no over and over again trying to deal with this… there was so much milk everywhere… I wasn’t even sure where to start at first. Did I mention we were having company later that afternoon? Because when you are having people over to your house for the first time you want the whole kitchen to smell like milk? No? Probably should have thought about that before deciding that it was the right day to make yogurt… Moving on..

So after I got everything cleaned up I started again. I really should have looked at the clock, because if I had I probably would have waited until the morning because it needs to sit for at least 8 hours. That might have been fine except what I thought was going to take about 30 minutes took over an hour. The recipe says to use a half gallon of milk. I for whatever reason decided to make a double batch. The crockpot express has a yogurt button. It cooks the milk for about 30 or so minutes to get to 180 degrees. I put my milk in (bowl in this time), hit the button and filled my sink with cold water. Fortunately I did pay attention to the fact it needed to be at a certain temperature. The crockpot beeped… checked my temperature…. not 180. No big deal I thought and tried hitting the button again to start it up. This machine is pretty close to dummy proof. After you cook it you set it to incubate for 8 hours. It wouldn’t let me repeat the same action to heat the milk. This probably is to prevent you from ruining your milk if you had put the correct amount in the bowl. I however did not. So I had to think about this for a few minutes. My default when electronic things are not working is to turn them off . I turned it off and unplugged it. Tried the yogurt button again.. still outsmarted me. I decided to turn it off again, unplug, then use the crockpot setting for awhile to heat it up to 180. I had to check it often because I honestly had no idea how long this would take. I don’t remember exactly how long it took but I got my milk to temperature. I sat it in the cold water bath and waited for it to come down. Fortunately this took a lot less time than warming it up took. Now to set my Crockpot Express to the proper time. You could do between 8 and up to 12 hours, I decided to go for 8 for a more mild yogurt the first time around. Then the horror set in… it was past 3pm… which meant not I was not likely to be in bed before midnight…. big oops.

The rest of the yogurt making process could not have been easier… I didn’t tough it again. The hardest part was waiting… especially as it got later and later.

I couldn’t believe when I went into the kitchen and saw 2 hours left…. it felt like a really long 2 hours. At that point it was a mix of wanting to see if it worked… and wanting to go to bed.

The timer finally went off at 11:40 PM

This is what it looked like when I opened the lid. When I stirred it and started to take out I was a little worried maybe I had done something wrong. I remembered that it will thicken overnight and you need to let it sit overnight in the fridge.

This is what it looked like the next morning. Much more like I expected yogurt to look. The consistency was a little thinner than I normally like since I am used to Greek yogurt, but that is something I can work on next time by either adding something to thicken it or straining it like Greek yogurt is.

Overall I’m really happy with how this turned out. The yogurt is good, super cheap compared to buying the same quantity in the store, and I have the satisfaction out of doing it myself.

Would I do it again? Absolutely! Only this time I would start at breakfast time to avoid being up past midnight putting away yogurt. The main issues I ran into were silly mistakes… like pouring milk all over my counter and not factoring in the added liquid into the cooking time. All simple things that I should be able to avoid the next time around.

Have you tried making your own yogurt? Let me know how it came out!