How Make Yogurt In Instant Pot

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Why Make Yogurt With An Instant Pot

How To Make Homemade Yogurt in the Instant Pot

Yogurt technically isnt cooked. Its incubatedwhich means it’s held at a constant warm temperature . This encourages desirable, heat-happy bacteria to be fruitful and multiply.

An Instant Pots programming keeps the temperature right in that target zone, eliminating a bunch of potential issueslike stringy yogurt caused by too-warm temperatures.

Tips For Making Instant Pot Yogurt Without The Yogurt Button

  • Brand of Milk | You can use whatever brand of milk you would like. It gets heated properly so it will kill off any bacteria during the cooking process.
  • Thickness | I prefer whole milk as it will leave you with a silky and creamy yogurt. If you use lower fat milk it will be thinner, but you can strain to thicken it up.
  • Lumps | If you find that your yogurt is lumpy, use a whisk or blender to whip it to help break up any lumps and give it a creamy texture.
  • Yogurt Starter | So for me, I find 3-4 Tablespoons of yogurt works nicely. But some recipes go all the way up to around 1/4 cup. Now, the more you add the thicker your yogurt will be. I wouldnt go over 1/4 cup though, as it will affect the recipe.

What Can Go Wrong When Making Yogurt

1. The yogurt does not set and is runny.

  • You perhaps added too much starter, which crowds the bacteria. In the case of starter, more is not better. Two tablespoons is enough to culture half a gallon of milk.
  • You may not have incubated the yogurt long enough. Keep at it, checking every hour or so.

You may have added the starter before allowing the just-boiled milk to correctly cool. Very hot milk can kill the cultures youre depending on. Let it come down to under 120°F and above 116°F.

2. The finished yogurt is gritty or chunky.

This can happen when you incubate the yogurt too long. Next time, check your yogurt every hour or so after the first 4 hours of incubation.

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How To Make Instant Pot Yogurt In Jars

I bought an Instant Pot a few months ago because I had heard about how amazing this programmable pressure cooker is. Im not huge on kitchen gadgets, but if its easy and saves me both time and money, Im interested.

I love good yogurt and by good, I mean the non-GMO, antibiotic-free, local grass-fed kind. You can keep the chopped up cookies and high fructose corn syrup. Good yogurt is delicious, but its expensive.

How To Store Homemade Yogurt

Easy Homemade Vegan Yogurt

Yogurt is best stored in the refrigerator and must be refrigerated immediately to halt the fermentation process. In fact, prepared yogurt tastes best after resting for a couple hours in the refrigerator. It must be consumed in 2-3 days. It is still safe for consumption after two days but the yogurt tends to become more and more sour with time. You can use terracotta, steel, Tupperware, and ceramic containers to store yogurt. You do not need to cover the container, however, it is always safe to do in order to avoid cross contamination.

And there it is, our latest Instant Pot adventure! Stay tuned here for the many more thats sure to come our way.

If you are anything like us and love geeking out, here’s some more about setting yogurt or dahi:

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How To Make Instant Pot Yogurt Without The Yogurt Button

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I am going to share how to make Instant Pot yogurt without the yogurt button! If you have a model that doesnt have that handy yogurt setting, it is okay, you can still make homemade yogurt in the Instant Pot without that button. Once you learn how to make Instant Pot yogurt you will never buy it again!

Almost every recipe you find online about making Instant Pot yogurt tells you to hit that yogurt button on your Instant Pot. If you dont have the yogurt button, it is okay. I am going to teach you how to make it without needing that button. Why? Because homemade yogurt is so creamy and tasty, it beats store yogurt time and time again. And if you have an Instant Pot you have to try it for anyone who enjoys yogurt.

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Yes, you can make yogurt at home! Its cheaper and 100x creamier! Youll never want to buy store-bought yogurt again!

What? Yogurt in an Instant Pot?! Um, yes, 10000 times yes!

The process sounds like itll take for-ever, but really, this recipe is so stinking easy with like 4 minutes of hands-on time its basically effortless. And fool-proof.

Now why bother making homemade yogurt? Well, for starters, its 100000x better than store-bought. Seriously. Its creamier and substantially less tangy. With zero-sweetener.

Plus, you know once you go homemade, you can NEVER go back to the store-bought version. NEVER EVER EVER.

And for that, Im truly sorry.

Well, not really.

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Homemade Yogurt In The Instant Pot

Is Homemade Yogurt Cheaper?

YES! Youll see in the recipe that homemade yogurt is essentially the same cost as the milk you use. You only need a little bit of yogurt to turn a large amount of milk into yogurt.

This is really good news if you are buying organic or raw milk because every cost savings helps.

Instant Pot Cold Start Yogurt

EASIEST How To Make Yogurt In The Instant Pot

Another option you have is to make your yogurt using the cold start method. You still need just two ingredients, but the benefit is you don’t have to boil the milk or worry about milk temperature.

Note: You have to use ultra-pasteurized or ultra-filtered milk for cold start yogurt. The cold start method does not work with regular milk.

Ultra-Pasteurized milk is regular milk that goes through a special filtration process, which results in milk which has 50% more protein, 30% more calcium and half the sugar of regular milk, and it is lactose free. Example: Fairlife Ultrafiltered Milk. To make no-boil yogurt:

  • Combine milk and starter: whisk 1 cup of the milk together with the starter until fully combined.
  • Add to instant pot: pour the remaining 3 cups of milk into the instant pot, then whisk in the starter mixture.
  • Incubate: place the lid on the instant pot, hit “YOGT”, then adjust it to read 8:00 at normal temperature. Let it incubate.
  • Refrigerate: remove the inner pot from the instant pot, cover with plastic wrap, then refrigerate for another 6-8 hours to thicken and cool.
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    Does Instant Pot Yogurt Need To Be Strained

    This will depend on how you like your yogurt and what you are going for. If you want a really thick Greek-style yogurt, then you should strain it. Greek yogurt is typically my preferred yogurt style, but I actually choose not to strain mine. I prefer the slightly thick, creamy texture. Strain the yogurt after chilling it.

    If you do strain your yogurt and find its too thick, you can add some of the strained whey to the mixture and stir. It should loosen it some.

    Five: Whisk In A Yogurt Starter

    • Use either prepared yogurt or a yogurt starter and whisk into your prepared milk.
    • It is important to note that if using prepared yogurt you need to be sure it is plain yogurt with live and active cultures.
    • If your starter is sweetened or does not have live cultures, making yogurt at home will NOT work!

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    Bonus: How Make Thickened Yogurt

    For thick Greek- or Icelandic-style yogurt, spoon the yogurt into a strainer lined with a kitchen towel, coffee filter, or cheesecloth and allow to drain in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours and up to overnight. The liquid that drains off is protein-rich whey. The author of the yogurt recipe profiled here, Daniel Shumski, suggests using it in place of water in your favorite bread dough or pizza recipes. But you can also use it in place of buttermilk in my favorite biscuits, or stir it into smoothies.

    Now that you know how to make yogurt in an Instant Pot, feel free to stir in some peach jam, toss on a myriad of savory toppings, or use it to dress a gorgeous platter of Instant Potcooked beets with dill and lime:

    Get Off To A Good Start

    Instant Pot Greek Yogurt Recipe

    A starter culture is the seed you plant in the milk that will grow the bacteria you want to transform it into the final product. There are different mixtures of these bacteria used in commercial yogurt-making, which also gives the yogurt different flavors. Choose a store-bought yogurt that you like the flavor of and start with that, being sure it says on the label it has active cultures. Plain yogurt works best, but a little flavored yogurt works, too. Once you get going, you can save a little from your last batch to seed the next one.

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    Making Yogurt In An Instant Pot With Goat Milk

    Yogurt is what I call a sterile culturing process. The substrate aka the milk, is sterilized then inoculated with chosen microbes. This is very different from the wild fermentation process we normally write about. Within just 12 24 hours of inoculating sterile milk with friendly bacteria, youll have yogurt!

    I highly suggest using organic goat milk or cow milk sourced from the farmers market. Raw milk works wonderfully too if you have access to someone with a dairy cow but you will have to cook it before using it to make yogurt. There are some great options for organic milk at the grocery store. Here we used Meyenberg Goat Milk from Whole Foods. Goat milk yogurt is naturally thinner than cow milk yogurt because goat milk has less lactose. If you prefer thick and more solid yogurt, you should use cow milk. You can also do a half and half mix, and then strain off the whey with cheesecloth to thicken it even more.

    Heres what you will need to make this yogurt in an instant pot:

    • 64 fluid ounces organic Cow or Goat Milk
    • A starter culture or yogurt with live active cultures
    • Jars for the finished yogurt
    • Thermometer

    Here are the settings you will use to make this recipe.

    • First, you sterilize the milk on the high setting at 181° F
    • Then, you allow the milk to cool
    • Next, add your starter cultures or already made yogurt
    • Last, you will incubate the yogurt for 12 hours on the medium setting at 107° F.

    How Can I Tell When My Instant Pot Yogurt Is Done

    After boiling and cooling, youll add a bit of live yogurt to your milk, then set the whole thing to cook on low for several hours this is the incubation period. We recommend a cooking time of seven to eight hours, but your yogurt will thicken in as little as three hours . At eight hours, it generally has a nice thickness and just the right amount of sour tang exactly what youd expect from traditional whole-milk yogurt. Push it a little longer , and youll get a thick and tangy yogurt .

    Be gentle when checking your yogurts doneness and use a clean spoon each time. Agitation can lead to clumping or looser yogurt.

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    How To Make Instant Pot Yogurt In 5 Simple Steps

    Over all the process of making yogurt at home is simple and straightforward, its just not quick.

  • Scald the milk . This kills harmful bacteria, destroys enzymes and denatures the proteins
  • Let cool
  • Add starter yogurt and
  • Chill the yogurt for at least 4 hours before using.
  • Enjoy!
  • Now lets get down into the more detailed instructions they are quite important to yogurt success:

    Instant Pot Cold Start Yogurt Method

    How to Make Homemade Instant Pot Yogurt

    The cold start method comes from Frieda Loves Bread. Its a method of making yogurt in the Instant Pot without having to boil it. I love this method because it saves a ton of time and is less intimidating. When I first got my Instant Pot I wanted to make yogurt. I never made time for the steps of boiling it, testing the temperature, etc. This method eliminates those steps. There are plenty of instructional videos on YouTube if you wish to boil the yogurt.

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    Choosing Type Of Milk

    Choosing the right type of milk is one of the most critical steps to succeed in making homemade yogurt because the type of milk will determine the thickness and creaminess of your homemade yogurt.

    After testing the Instant Pot Yogurt Recipe with 2% Milk, 3.25% Milk and 3.8% Milk, 3.8% Whole Milk with the highest milk fat content produced the thickest and creamiest homemade yogurt.

    For reference, we used the above Whole Foods 365 Organic 3.8% Whole Milk for this Instant Pot Yogurt Recipe.

    Shelf Life Of Instant Pot Yogurt

    This yogurt will stay good for 8-10 days in a cold climate. However after 2-3 days the taste changes. This will turn slightly tangy or sour in taste. So it is advisable to make it in small batches especially if you do not like the sour taste or want to consume it fresh or use it in smoothies or your breakfast bowls.

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    Pour Milk Into Your Instant Pot

    For 8 cups of finished plain yogurt, you’ll want to start with 2 quarts of milk. Feel free to use whatever kind of dairy milk you like: whole milk, 2%, or skim are all fine. If you’d like a richer yogurt, you can even sub in cream for some of that milk . For non-dairy yogurt, you’ll need a different recipe here’s one for coconut yogurt.

    What If Your Instant Pot Doesnt Have The Yogurt Setting

    How to Make Homemade Yogurt in the Instant Pot

    While most Instant Pot models feature a yogurt button right on the front panel, there are some models that dont include it as a setting. Instant Brands makes changes to machines all the time, adding features and taking them off, says Weinstein. For example, some Duo models include the yogurt setting while others have not. Weinstein suggests inspecting the panel and specific features before buying a model if youd like to try the yogurt function.

    If your Instant Pot model doesnt have the yogurt function, Weinstein doesnt recommend using the appliance for yogurt-making. The yogurt setting is designed for success and safety. Trying to duplicate what that feature does on a machine without that feature is asking for trouble, says Weinstein.

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    Let The Milk Cool + Add Your Culture

    Once you remove your instant pot and sit it on the counter, wait for the temp to cool to 115 use a thermometer for this. It took my milk just over 90 minutes I sped up the process by stirring it frequently too. Make sure your thermometer is sanitized and just wait patiently.

    Once the yogurt reaches 115, you will need to add 1/2 C of your yogurt starter culture mix it in well. If you dont have any of your own yogurt from a previous batch, then I would suggest a plain, full fat organic yogurt variety .

    How To Make Homemade Yogurt Using The Instant Pot Yogurt Setting

    If you own an Instant Pot, theres a good chance youve used the pressure cooker setting to cook up meat, beans, soup, or grains. But what about all of those other buttons, like the mysterious yogurt setting?

    The Instant Pot takes much of the guesswork out of making yogurt, especially during the incubation phase when its important to keep yogurt at a specific temperature for several hours. This can be tricky without a device like the Instant Pot to constantly monitor the temperature.

    While making yogurt takes some time, its almost entirely hands-off, especially when you use an Instant Pot.

    While you can pick up yogurt at the store, homemade is far superior. Making something from scratch is always better than store-bought. You know whats in it and you can customize it to your taste, says Bruce Weinstein, co-author of several popular Instant Pot cookbooks including The Instant Pot Bible and Instant Pot Bible: Copycat Recipes.

    Strain homemade yogurt to make Greek yogurt, embellish with sweeteners and fruit, or enjoy as-is. It keeps for a solid two weeks in the fridge and you can use the last bit of your yogurt as the starter for a whole new batch.

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    Vegan Instant Pot Yogurt

    Making vegan yogurt in an Instant Pot takes the guesswork out of a process that tends to depend on things beyond your control, like the weather. And it couldn’t be easier. Here’s my foolproof, two-ingredient recipe for a cultured vegan Instant Pot yogurt that’s creamy, thick like Greek yogurt, tangy, probiotic and delicious.

    I know so many of you, like me, love making your own vegan yogurt at home. A few years back I posted a probiotic cashew yogurt recipe that’s easy, delicious, and beats the heck out of paying a small fortune to buy a tub of vegan yogurt at the supermarket. So many of you have made it since, loved it, and continue to make it.

    But one thing that often emerges in comments is concerns about the varying times it takes for the yogurt to set. Even in the cozy atmosphere of an oven with the light turned on, it is not easy to predict when the yogurt will be ready. Because that time really depends to a great degree on factors outside your control: how cold or warm it is outside, which affects how cold or warm it is even inside your temperature-controlled home.

    That’s why, today, I want to share with you a recipe that takes all of that guesswork out of making vegan yogurt: my Instant Pot Vegan Yogurt.

    I love this Instant Pot vegan yogurt and I’ve pretty much switched to making my yogurt this way now. It turns out thicker, for one, and it is perfectly tangy and creamy. If you try it, I wanna know, so be sure to leave a comment below.

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