17

When making yogurt with Yogourmet yogurt starters it is recommended to boil the milk, bring it down to 110 degrees F, then take out a cup of milk and mix the starter, then add that mixture back into the main batch of milk and let it culture.

What is the reason for not just adding the starter directly to the batch of milk?

Adam Thompson
  • 519
  • 5
  • 10

3 Answers3

36

Dry powders are easier to mix if you make a slurry first with a small amount of liquid and then mix the slurry in.

If you skip this step you will have clumps of dry powder floating on top of the milk and it will take a lot more effort to mix in.

When you are using yoghurt as a starter for a new batch this step is not necessary and the starter can just be mixed in directly.

Sobachatina
  • 47,417
  • 19
  • 159
  • 254
  • 3
    And mixing a smaller amount of liquid reduces risk of spilling (especially as you need to mix more vigorously/longer as mentioned). – Viktor Mellgren Jun 18 '19 at 14:28
  • 9
    The “dry powder mixes better into a small amount of liquid than a large” is useful for many situations: making cocoa, thickening a sauce with flour, … – PLL Jun 18 '19 at 19:31
  • 1
    Even when using yogurt as the starter, it helps to mix a bit more liquid into it before mixing it into the milk to form the new yogurt. – The Photon Jun 19 '19 at 04:51
  • @PLL making mayonnaise too! – Guimoute Jun 19 '19 at 12:56
8

To avoid clumping. It is much easier to disperse a solid into a small volume of liquid first by whisking or stirring to reach an even consistency and then pouring it into a larger volume of liquid where it will disperse readily, than it is to manage the solids being dumped directly into a larger volume of liquid.

pygosceles
  • 191
  • 1
2

in addition to avoiding clumping, thoroughness of mixing with less effort

whether this is well understood or not, you're much more likely to uniformly mix a cup of something into a quart of something than you are to uniformly mix a teaspoon of something into a quart of something

this technique scales well. need a teaspoon of something thoroughly mixed into to 30 gallons of something else? start with a cup, then a gallon, then 5 gallons, then the 30 gallons otherwise the original teaspoon would just be a thin spiral streak through the big batch

pleasePassTheCheese
  • 766
  • 4
  • 14