If you have completed your starter culture with milk and lemon (if you haven’t, start here). Now our culture has been setting in a warm and quiet place for 24ish hours.

Remove the lemons from the culture, carefully scrape it off of the lemon slices, you’ll want every bit! Go ahead and stir it to a smooth consistency. You could potentially eat this, but it’s not going to taste very good. With this we are going to create our first yogurt seed. The seed is the starter that will go into each yogurt batch. You’ll add the seed to your yogurt and then save a new seed from each batch. Similar to a sourdough start.

To make a seed, you are just going to make a small batch of yogurt. Use 1 tsp of the starter to each 1/2 cup of whole milk.

This process is going to be the exact same process you use in the future to make your yogurt, we just have to get that original curdled culture into a usable seed.

I’ve included two versions here depending on if you are using and instant pot or the stove/oven in a dutch oven. I did not include direction for using a yogurt maker/incubator because I do not have one and am not able to test it. If you have an incubator, then make yogurt the way you normally would but in a smaller batch as to not waste milk.

****IMPORTANT NOTE****

I found it incredibly difficult to keep my (newer) GE Gas oven warm. The light did very little and I was having to re-preheat the oven every hour to keep it in the right temp range. I ended up moving my entire 2qt dutch oven into my Gluck Air Fryer and incubating on the adjustable dehydrator settings 115F for 4 hours at a time.

DUTCH OVEN DIRECTIONS

All you need is 2 Tablespoons of the newly cultured yogurt start and 3 cups of milk. A heavy pot that is oven safe and a thermometer to monitor .

Slowly bring whole milk to 180F. I use a spatula/thermometer combo like this

When the milk reaches 180 degrees, remove it from the heat and cool to 135F

When the milk cools to 135 degrees, scoop out a small amount and stir into the yogurt culture, when it is thoroughly mixed, add the milk/culutre into the pot, mix in well, avoid scraping the bottom of the pot.

Incubate the yogurt in the 110-115F range for 5-12 hours : preheat the oven for 1 minute, turn it off. Leave the light on in the oven. Keep an eye on the oven temp using an oven thermometer. If the temp drops below 110, preheat for 1 minute and turn off **Many newer ovens use LED lights that do not emit heat to keep the oven warm. Some ovens do have a warmer function, but mine does not. So I use our meat thermometer like this to monitor the inside temp without opening the door

Do not disturb for the first 5 hours, then it is your preference how long you let it incubate.

INSTANT POT DIRECTIONS

same as the dutch oven directions, you only need 2 TBS of the yogurt culture starter and 3 cups of whole milk.

Bring milk to 180F in the instant pot (with lid on) using the Yogurt (More) button. It will take 35ish minutes. The screen will say "yogt" when ready. Check the temp manually

Remove the inner pot and allow to cool to 135F.

When the milk cools to 135 degrees, scoop out a small amount and stir into the yogurt culture, when it is thoroughly mixed, add the milk/culutre into the pot, mix in well, avoid scraping the bottom of the pot.

Incubate the yogurt: place the inner pot back in the Instant Pot, secure the lid, use the Yogurt (Normal) button. Adjust the time to 6-12 hours depending on your preference.

Do not disturb for at least 6 hours, then it is your preference how long you let it incubate