Sous Vide Yogurt

To make yogurt you heat milk or cream to above 180°F (82.2°C), cool it down and mix with a starter culture, then let it incubate at 100°F to 120°F (37.8°C to 48.9°C) for several hours. Using a sous vide machine allows you to easily maintain the temperatures you are looking for.

Sous vide yogurt is typically made in glass mason jars with the lids either off or not fully tightened. The starter bacteria will give off gasses as they create the yogurt so a sealed container can leak or explode. The yogurt is also usually made in the container you will store or serve it from because moving it to a new one can affect the consistency of the yogurt. You can use the sous vide machine to reach both temperatures but I typically just heat the milk on the stove because it's much quicker than raising and lowering the temperature of the whole water bath.

I call for half and half, which results in a very thick yogurt. If you prefer a thinner one you can substitute whole or 2% milk. To get the incubation going you need to add a 1/2 cup of yogurt that contains live and active cultures. Yogurt that contains this type of culture will be labelled on the package. The length of the incubation time adds tanginess to the yogurt and can range from 3 hours to 24 hours.

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