How to make Yogurt

Homemade yogurt requires just two ingredients and no special equipment. Check this out for more on straining the laban, and the very many special ways to enjoy eating it.

Ingredients 

1/2 gallon milk (skim, 1%, 2%, or ideally, whole organic milk)

1/4 cup yogurt (plain yogurt with live active cultures; ideally whole milk), room temperature

Instructions 

1. First, heat the milk: Rinse a large heavy saucepan (3-quart or larger) with cool water. Add the milk. Bring the milk o just below a boil (210 degrees) at medium low heat, about 15 minutes. Stay nearby, because the milk will froth up and as it begins to boil it will rise up swiftly in the pan. Remove from the heat immediately.

2. Next, cool the milk: Allow the milk in the pan cool down to 110-115 degrees, stirring occasionally. If you are not using a thermometer, the equivalent is when your pinkie can just withstand being swirled in the milk for ten seconds. Arriving at this temperature can take an hour. If the milk cools below 110 degrees, gently warm it up to 110-115 degrees. If in this process of reheating, the temperature goes above 115 degrees, wait again until it comes back down to 110-115.

3. Spoon a few tablespoons of the milk at this temperature into the yogurt (rawbi) starter, then stir that starter yogurt into the milk. You will notice a skin forms on the surface of the milk; that can be stirred right in with the starter, or spooned out.

4. Cover the pot with a lid and lay a kitchen towel over that to promote warmth. Set the pan aside, undisturbed, in a warm spot for anywhere from 8 to 10 hours, or overnight. An ideal incubator is the oven, turned off (the oven can be heated on the lowest setting for a minute before placing the pan in, just to encourage warmth, but be sure to turn it off immediately).

5. Chill the yogurt: Remove the pot from the oven. The milk will have thickened into yogurt. Place, undisturbed as of yet, into the refrigerator for 1-3 days to further set the yogurt before eating or straining to thicken.