We eat yogurt mainly for digestive health purposes. We don’t care for the taste. So, we weren’t the biggest fans of yogurt, until Chobani flips that is.
Chobani flips are possibly the best thing to happen to yogurt. They’re that good. But they’re a little expensive at around $1.40 a serving in our neck of the woods. So we decided to start making them at home.
Now, you could just buy inexpensive Greek yogurt from the grocery store, but we wanted to take this opportunity to try the yogurt making setting on our instant pot.
For this experiment, we used the following ingredients:
-1/2 Gallon of milk $1.50
-Yogurt (used as a starter) $.99
-Mini semi-sweet chocolate chips $2.29
-Dried cherry flavored cranberries $2.00
-Graham crackers $2.00
Note: the chocolate chips, dried cranberries, and graham crackers are optional, and can be substituted for whatever you prefer.
We also used the following equipment:
-Instant pot ip-duo60 (you can also use a slow cooker or stove top)
-Thermometer
-Teaspoon
-Cheese cloth
-Vegetable strainer
-Pot
The total cost was about $8. I didn’t bother doing hardcore math for this project (like this page which calculates homemade yogurt cost all the way down to electricity cost), but you do save a lot of money when you make the yogurt yourself. The total cost per serving is a little hard to calculate because the chocolate chips, graham crackers, and dried cherries are like condiments. You might not use the same amount for each serving. Just as it would be tedious to calculate the cost of ketchup and mustard you put on a cheeseburger.
Making Homemade Chobani-like Greek Yogurt Flips
Below, are the steps that you can take to make yogurt using an electric pressure. You can click here for slow cooker instructions or here for stovetop.
Step 1. Preparation
Gather your utensils. Decide on the number of yogurt servings you want to make. This will determine the amount of yogurt starter you need.
Step 2. Sanitation
The first thing you need to do is make sure that you sterilize your equipment including the container. You can boil the utensils using this water jacket setup here. Or you can simply wash them really well like I did. The utensils that you use need to be sterile because this prevents the other bacteria from potentially spreading and competing with the bacteria in your yogurt.
Step 2. Scald the milk
Following the directions that came with your electric pressure cooker. Using the instant pot ip-duo60, pour the milk into the pot, push the “yogurt” button, then press the “adjust button” until the screen reads “boil”. When the scalding process is finished, the screen will say “yogt”.
Step 3. Let it cool…
Once the milk is scalded, you have to let it cool down until it reaches 115F or lower. This took about an hour for us.
Step 4. Add the starter…
To make yogurt you need a starter. Yogurt is a starter. For every cup of milk you want to add about 1 teaspoon of yogurt. Make sure that the yogurt is plain. Stir the container until the yogurt is dissolved in the milk.
Step 5. Run the yogurt program
Press the “yogurt” button. You can use the “+” or “-” button to adjust the time. The default time is 8 hours.
Step 6. Strain
The yogurt won’t be Greek style yogurt yet. For that, you will need to strain it using a cheese or other food grade straining cloth. We poured the yogurt over a cheese cloth lined vegetable strainer. Then we placed the strainer on top of the pot. The longer you strain the thicker the yogurt. We strained our yogurt for about 6 hours.
Step 7. Add your mix-ins
This part is freestyle. Chobani makes some delicious flavors, like key-lime crumble and peachy pistachio. In the picture below is one of our favorite homemade concoctions; Chocolate cran-cherry cheesecake. Making yogurt at home is fun and healthy. You control the ingredients. For example, you can choose farm fresh milk rather than the stuff you get from the grocery store.
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