Make your own plantbased yogurt

This blog post is also available in German.

Making your own plantbased yoghurt sounds great, doesn’t it? Saving money and eliminating packaging waste all at once. And it’s easy too! Maybe you`ve already started to make your own plantbased yoghurt, just to discover that it turned out too. Super frustrating isn`t it? Or you maybe belong to those ones who would like to make their own plantbased yoghurt, but haven`t yet dared to do so.

No matter which group you belong to, starting tomorrow you`ll produce yoghurt yourself and you will succeed. Because in the last two months I’ve experimented a lot, accepted a few failures and even shed a few crocodile tears. And all of that to create an instruction for you that is certain to succeed. All the bigger was the euphoria when it finally worked out! So without further ado I threw my content plan overboard – the post about local superfoods will be available next week – and started hitting the keys. Just had to share my sense of achievement with you right away. Hopefully this post will help you jump over your own shadow and finally make your own plantbased yogurt or at least put an end to your failure series.

The time factor does not exist!

Often I hear sentences like: “I don’t know where you take the time to make your own food” or “I just don’t have the time to make my own yoghurt”. Don’t get me wrong, we all have our priorities in life and mine may be different from yours. But making plantbased yogurt yourself doesn’t take a lot of time and is incredibly easy. So if you want to produce a little less waste, I advise you to make your own yogurt. You only have to invest 5 minutes. Because that’s how long it takes to stir the mixture. The rest goes by itself.

In terms of ingredients you don’t have to make any big investments either. To make vegetable yogurt yourself, you only need a yogurt cup (still full *lol*) and plantbased milk (bought or homemade) as a starter. After that you just go on using your homemade yogurt as a base for the following yogurt batches, until the cultures in it are used up. Then you can either add yogurt powder or buy a new yogurt. Like that you`re going to save quite a few cups and produce less waste.

However, there are a few important things you need to keep in mind to make your  plantbased yogurt a real success. I’ll tell you right away what these are.

Make your own plantbased yoghurt – the guarantee of success

As I said before, my attempts were accompanied by many failures until I finally found the right mixture and method. To help you get started in yoghurt production, here are the main points to keep in mind.

Choosing the basic ingredients

In order for the vegetable yoghurt to succeed, I recommend working with a yoghurt base of soy, cashew or coconut. I haven’t tested oats yet and almond yoghurt has unfortunately been a failure for me in several trials. For soy yoghurt I use soy milk, for cashew yoghurt I use cashew milk, etc. I haven`t tried mixing different milk and yoghurt bases up to now, but I`ll be happy to update here if I succeed.
If you use homemade vegetable milk, it`s very important that you boil it first. This will kill germs and prolong the shelf life of your yoghurt. After the boiling process, it is essential that you allow the milk to cool completely so that you don`t destroy the bacterial culture in your yoghurt.

So far I have been successful with soy yoghurt. I will test cashew and coconut next.

The right ratio

Just as important as the choice of basic ingredients is the right ratio of milk to yoghurt. The following proportions worked out positively for me:

• 250g vegetable yoghurt & 250ml vegetable milk (let mature for 8 hours)
• 200g vegetable yoghurt & 1000ml vegetable milk (mature 12h)

The best thing is to try one of these ratios and if the yoghurt doesn`t have the desired texture after the specified maturing time, you can let it mature a little longer.

The perfect maturing time

It`s somewhere between 8 and 12 hours, depending on the ratio of yogurt to milk. A constant temperature of approx. 37° to 38° Celsius is important as well.

Two different methods to make your own plantbased yogurt

There are two different approaches and two different methods how you can make your own vegetable yogurt. Either you can add probiotics (bacteria culture) or yogurt powder to your plantbased milk or you can mix – as I do – yoghurt with milk. Why did I choose the latter method? Because I wanted to give you a guide that didn’t require any extra purchases, such as buying yoghurt powder or probiotics. You should be able to make your own plantbased yogurt from the comfort of your own home. That’s why I`m all down for the latter approach.

With this method you have two options, either you use a machine or by hand, as your grandmother may have already done it back in the days. In principle, the machine only guarantees that the temperature can be kept constant at 37° to 38° Celsius, which is a bit more difficult with the manual method. In both cases you only have 5 minutes of effort though!

If you make your plantbased yogurt by hand, fill the mixture into a glass, close and wrap it in a cloth, then place it in a warm and dry place in your home. In winter, the radiator is a very good choice if it`s not heating too much. During the summer months you can put your glass in your still warm bed. If necessary, you can add a hot-water bottle. The last option is the oven method. The glasses are placed in the oven at approx. 37-40° Celsius for several hours. Certainly the most unfavourable manual method in terms of sustainability. Unfortunately, I don’t have a comparison in terms of electricity consumption for yogurt machines and the oven method.

As I said, I make my yogurt with a machine. However, mine is a multi-cooker that has 26 different functions, including making yogurt. Personally, I wouldn`t have invested money in an extra yoghurt machine if I had not already had the multi-cooker. Try the manual methods first, before you invest money in another machine. Unless you`re planning to produce bigger amounts of yogurt on a regular basis, then I guess a machine would be a good choice.

What else you should keep in mind when making your own plantbased yogurt

There are a few more tricks that are helpful when you make your own plantbased yogurt. I would definitely been happy if I had known them when I started making yogurt.

• Yogurt is very sensitive to vibrations during it`s making process. So don’t shake, open or move the glass or machine.
• You have to mix the milk-yogurt-mixture very well, otherwise lumps can form in the yogurt. So it’s best to add the milk to the yogurt step by step.
• The temperature should be kept constant between 37° and approx. 40°. Temperatures that are too warm are death for your yogurt.
• If your yogurt is still too liquid after 8 hours of ripening, let it ripen for another 4 hours.
• If your yogurt is still too liquid even after 12 hours, you can thicken it with carob or quaker gum.
• Note that it`s more difficult to achieve a firm consistency with plantbased yoghurt. My yoghurt has never been  completely firm.
• You can add sweeteners or fruit to your yogurt after making it. Like that you can easily make your own fruity yogurt at home.

Although I`ve already described my method here, I will still include it in this post as a printable recipe. Have fun making your own plantbased yoghurt and I would be very happy to recieve your feedback.

Read you soon

Sarah