Yogurt Maker Guide Category:
by Tammy on April 4, 2011
Almost everyone likes to eat yogurt, especially those who loves to munch on desserts during leisure time. If being prepared properly, yogurt can be a really healthy and delicious snack which can be made in many flavors and varieties. Since self-made yogurt tends to be much fresher and tangy in flavor than most of the store-bought ones, the yogurt can also be custom-tailor and blended according to your taste buds. Although yogurt making can be complicated at times especially for beginners, it is really not as hard as how it has been portrayed. Follow these valuable tips to make your batch more flavorful and successful:
Tip 1: Get high-quality bacteria for starter- Since the bacteria turns lactose in milk into lactic acid, you will need to pick a high-quality yogurt bacteria in order to make your first batch. Among the top choice of a high-quality, brand-name plain yogurt includes Danone.
Tip 2: Use a candy thermometer- You need to monitor the exact cooking temperatures at all times and the candy thermometer is the best option as it is designed to sit in liquids and provide very accurate temperature readings.
Tip 3: Sterilize all cooking equipments- Before you start the process of yogurt-making, be sure to sterilize all cooking equipments. Most cooking equipments such as spoons, pots, and measuring cups contain natural bacteria. By sterilizing your equipments, you’ll be able to avoid any unwanted bacteria from breeding in the yogurt.
Tip 4: Flavoring and the next batch- It is highly recommendable that you get creative with flavor combinations. Try experimenting during your yogurt-making process by adding walnuts, fruits, fruit preserves, or granola for some added flavors.
Tip 5: If your yogurt appears to be smelly or tastes and looks odd, don’t consume it. Discard it away immediately and create a new batch instead upon cleaning the utensils needed for the yogurt preparation.
Tip 6: If you have poured your yogurt mixture into the yogurt maker, never touch it directly with bare fingers as a close contact with skin may turn your yogurt rotten.
Tip 7: To make a yogurt with thick texture, use an organic milk as it makes the thickest yogurt if compared to other milk types such as powdered milk.
Tip 8: To get the best and appropriate sweetness for your yogurt, try adding a few tablespoons of sugar to your milk mixture when boiling.
Tip 9: If you’d like an additional flavoring, add a sweeteners oat fruit after the yogurt is wholly processed and refrigerated.
Tip 10: Never heat the milk for too long as you’ll end up with a bad quality yogurt.
Tip 11: To get a firmer and tarter yogurt, extend the cooking time.
Tip 12: Yogurt which is made with skim milk powder will have a soft consistency.
Tip 13: Never leave the yogurt in the blender/ machine for too long as the curd and the liquid will separate, and you won’t be able to reverse it back.
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by Tammy on July 17, 2010
Yogurt is a quick, easy and nutritious snack that has a lot of benefits. And unlike some healthy foods, it is available all year long. A healthy dose of yogurt will do a lot of good to not only your digestive tract but a lot more. When I started to snack healthily, I find that I can reduce my budget on healthy snacks by making them myself. That was when I trotted down to the store and bought the best yogurt maker that I could afford.
Here are some of the health benefits that you can enjoy by having the habit of eating yogurt:
#1 Bone-Friendly Food
Yogurt, like cow’s milk and fermented milk products, have lactoferrin that binds iron. That and the calcium in dairy food help boost the growth and activity of the cells that build the human bones. For young girls, getting their calcium from dairy products will have stronger and faster growth of bones. Adults also can benefit from a healthy dose of yogurt as it does not only prevent osteoporosis, but also reverse the effects.
#2 It Helps The Gut
If you have problems with your digestive system, yogurt can help relieve them for you. Yogurt helps improve the efficiency of your digestive system because it activates the gut’s microflora (the bacteria that helps you digest your food) and optimize the time your food take to move through your bowel. So if you have diarrhoea, constipation and lactose intolerance, yogurt can help you a lot. The effects are rather quick. After two weeks of making my own yogurt with the best yogurt maker I purchased, I had no trouble at all with going to the bathroom in the mornings.
It can also reduce the risk of getting colon cancer. Yogurt, like other dairy food, contains some cancer preventive elements. It also helps to protect the heart.
#3 Reduce Major Health Risks
Dairy food have been found to help reduce many health risks. According to what I’ve read, researches show that by eating low-fat yogurt and other low-fat dairy produce can help lower the risk of developing high blood pressure by 50%. It can also help you control and improve your cholesterol profile; it lowers the bad cholesterol levels and at the same time increases the good one.
#4 Build Better Body Defense
I’m sure you know that yogurt contains bacteria in them. No worries. They’re friendly. In fact, one of the bacteria strain helps you build better body defense system. It is found that if you eat a daily serving of yogurt every day, your immune system will response and act more effectively.Because of this better immune system, you’re less likely to be vulnerable to any diseases. This will help you live longer because your body can fight those bad bacteria and viruses better.
Other than that, for women, eating yogurt can help keep vaginal yeast infection away. This may be an effect of eating yogurt that balances out the woman’s vaginal pH to at an ideal level.
As you can see, eating yogurt everyday has a lot of benefits. Other than what I’ve mentioned above, yogurt also helps keep your breath fresh, improve your metabolism and protect you from inflammatory infections (like ulcers and arthritis). So what are you waiting for? Go get the best yogurt maker that you can find in the nearest store. You can also read my reviews in my blog.
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by Tammy on July 12, 2010
If you take yogurt as part of your daily meal, you may want to consider buying a yogurt maker for yourself. Buying the best yogurt maker that you can get has it’s own advantage. Since you’re eating yogurt every day, making your own yogurt is much cheaper than buying them from the store. Plus, you have a great control of how yogurt is going to be; if you’re into flavored yogurt, you can add (or not add) ingredients to make a mixture of your own liking. You can also control the taste and texture of your perfect yogurt.
Yogurt makers are simple and not too exotic, so they generally range between $25 and $75 per machine. Although they are affordable and a useful kitchen appliance, they won’t do much good sitting at the back of the kitchen cabinet. So, like anything else that you would think about before buying, determine if a yogurt maker is what you need.
Now that you’ve determine that you need the best yogurt maker for your household, ask these questions to determine your perfect yogurt maker:
Question 1: How much yogurt will I be making?
If you’re feeding a family of 6, you’d probably going to make more yogurt than what I do as a single woman living on her own. From under a quart to about half a gallon, these yogurt makers range in sizes as much as they range in price.
Then there’s the option to buy a single vat yogurt maker or once that allows you to make yogurt in several containers. The advantage of these multiple containers is that you can make a variety of flavored yogurt without consuming more time. If you’re living in a big family, you can customize everyone share of yogurt all at one time.
Question 2: Is the thermostat reliable?
Temperature control is vital during the yogurt making process, so you’ll need a very reliable thermostat. The taste of the yogurt depends highly on the temperature control. That is why even when you can make your own yogurt in an oven, a yogurt maker is more preferable because it doesn’t have any hot or cold spots like an oven does.
Question 3: How much time am I willing to take to clean the yogurt maker?
The more containers you use to make the yogurt, the more time it will take for you to clean up. The best yogurt makers dishwasher safe so that you can be relieved that it won’t damage in the dishwasher. It is also important to regularly sterilize the containers used to make the yogurt and the base of the machine should be easy to wipe down.
Now that you’ve answer these simple questions, you should do some homework. Read up on the various yogurt maker reviews available online so that you can have the best yogurt maker at the best price. Just Google them up, or you can head to Amazon to read the review. I’ve also written some reviews on my blog for you to check out.
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Quite recently, I went to my friend’s family home in Minnesota and saw in her kitchen sits a big yogurt maker. It was odd since there are only 4 people, three when Nisha goes back to the city where she works, living in the house. It was there that I gotten to know another benefit of having the best yogurt maker in one’s home. Apparently, Nisha together with her Mom and sister uses yogurt as part of their beauty regime.
While Nisha and her family uses traditional Indian beauty recipes, here’s how you can use yogurt as a beauty aid:
Baby smooth skin
Because of its properties, yogurt is a natural softener. People with dry skin can benefit from this because the lactic acid that is found in dairy products helps to slough off the dead skin cells. The fat contained in the yogurt, will moisturize the skin making it soft and supple.
There are so many yogurt inspired body and facial mask online. My favorite would involve coffee and raw sugar mixed with the yogurt. Mix 2 cups of coffee, half cup of raw sugar and 3 tablespoon of yogurt to make a coarse body scrub. While in the shower, rub the mixture with firm, upward motions. Rinse and soap as usual.
You can also use yogurt to make your own face mask. Mix some refrigerated yogurt with rose petal and honey to make a paste and put it on your face. Leave it until it lost its coolness and rinse of with water. Your skin should feel soft because the mixture tightens the pores on your skin.
Lustrous Hair
If it works for your skin, why shouldn’t it work for your hair, right? Now you see why one of the best yogurt maker is in Nisha’s mother’s kitchen.
Healthy hair starts at the roots. So if your scalp is not clean, you will definitely have hair loss problem. So, to cure dandruff, work a huge amount of yogurt into your scalp and wash is thoroughly an hour before shampooing. The flaky skin should be ridden off. This method will also help people with dry, brittle hair.
Yogurt also makes as a good hair conditioner for all types of hair. With the same amount of conditioner that you would use on your hair, work the yogurt into your hair. Leave it on for 10 to 15 minutes before washing and shampooing your hair like normal.
Other Beauty Tips
- To ease the sting of a sunburn, apply yogurt on the area that had too much sun exposure. Let it dry for a good 20 minutes, before rinsing it off. It will definitely sooth the burn with its coolness.
- If you have dull nails, mix some yogurt and lemon juice. Keep it refrigerated for a few hours. It should then be in a lotion-like texture, so apply it on your hands. Your nails should have a natural shine to it afterwards. As a plus, your hands would be smooth too.
- Using a plain yogurt, replace your hair gel/cream/spray as a hairstyling products option. Use it as you would with normal hairstyling products. It will keep your hair where you’d want it and prevent it from looking too stiff. Use the non-fat version though, to prevent any flaking.
If you’re buying the yogurt, use Greek yogurt instead of any other kind. This is because they’re cheap and comes in big batches. That is why getting the best yogurt maker can help you minimize your cost on yogurt. Plus, if you’d want to use flavored yogurt for these beauty recipes, you can make your own batch.
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This is the first post for my best yogurt maker blog, so let’s start with some sort of introduction. 
I’m Tammy, and I like to think of myself as a yuppie, even though I’m not exactly young anymore.
I started adding yogurt to my diet quite a long time ago, since I found that being a workaholic in the finance industry isn’t doing much good to my health. It was my colleague who generously shared her yogurt with me then, and it tasted good with fruits in it. She made it with her own yogurt maker.
She also told me how yogurt benefits health, so I decided that I could do with a helping of yogurt every day. At first I bought yogurt from the store, but soon I wanted my own yogurt maker.
Although I’ve heard that you can also use the oven for making yogurt, but yogurt making involves letting the yogurt sit for hours and I don’t fancy occupying the oven for that. Besides, using the right tool will always make results better.
I bought the best yogurt maker I could afford then, and tried out a few other models lately. The best yogurt maker should be easy to use and preferably has an automatic shutdown because I can be forgetful when it comes to household stuff. And it should be really easy to clean too. I’ll write a post about how to choose the best yogurt maker for yourself with more details soon.
With a yogurt maker, I make batches of yogurt during the weekends to last for a whole week. And I like to experiment with flavors, vanilla yogurt, orange yogurt, plain yogurt with dices of fresh fruit, and even coffee yogurt.
My friend even recommended using yogurt as a beauty aid, so sometimes the yogurt I made ends up as a yogurt mask or hair conditioner as well. More to come on this, I promise. Stay on my blog!
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