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I should probably quote myself directly into the Guardian thread; but I bought one of those for getting a good temperature for Sourdough starter. Annoyingly whilst it says it goes down to 25°c it's actually closer to 35°c. Not sure if it's a fault or just the way it is. Otherwise a tidy bit of kit.
Edit:
but I notice that the 'potency' (activity I guess) of the culture definitely declines after two or three batches meaning you need to refresh the starter culture with more supermarket yog periodically.
Based on the above; I would assume that since yoghurt is fermented at a relatively high temp, you end up killing more of the bacteria than can reproduce. You could try taking a small amount out each time into a separate jar and feeding it with milk and keeping at room temp and using that as your starter
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branwen
davidvdp_is_better
For yoghurt making, I can recommend this which is cheap, small (all the containers stack inside making it counterspace/cupboard friendly) you can adjust to get exactly the ferment you want, and it comes with a strainer for perfect greek yog. I have also used it to make cultured butter (highly recommended) and experimented with soft cheeses.
As a fellow lactose-intolerant traveller I find milk-aid lactase drops work really well if you drop 3-4 in at the start of your milk ferment and I find the end-product is easily digestible (also the longer the ferment the better). I plan to give skyr a go too, which seems basically the same as yoghurt just with added casein for extra whey extraction.
If you want really high-protein greek yoghurt (and also to increase your yield from that litre of milk), whisk in a couple of tablespoons of skimmed milk powder at the start. And if you cba with the faff of heating the milk to denature the proteins before the ferment, just buy 1l UHT bottles from the shop (most supermarkets have them in packs of 6 where they are c. 90p per litre). The best culture to start with is definitely a tablespoon or so of supermarket greek yog, but I notice that the 'potency' (activity I guess) of the culture definitely declines after two or three batches meaning you need to refresh the starter culture with more supermarket yog periodically. Not 100% sure why this is and it is something I would love to figure out!