I’ve been making homemade yogurt for 9 or 10 months now. Once I found out how easy it was (especially if you have an Instapot), I was hooked, both for the convenience and the health benefits.

Store bought yogurt isn’t as easy on the gut and often contains ingredients that are damaging to the gut lining like guar gum and carageenan. In the flavoured yogurts, there’s a ton of refined sugar and in some, you might find artificial sweeteners like sucralose or aspartame. Yogurt should be simple and nourishing without added ingredients that damage the body.

There are some great yogurts out there. If you want a store bought one, look for a plain, full fat yogurt (3.5% or more) that contains only milk and the probiotic cultures, usually L. bulgaricus and S. thermophilus.

The problem with store bought yogurt comes down to fermentation time. IF you can gets your hands on a good brand without any added ingredients, it still likely isn’t fermented for longer than 8 hours. If you are dealing with any sort of digestive disorder or upset (or any health problem, for the matter), 8 hours is not long enough.

A 24 hour ferment is what is needed for the bacteria to break down all the lactose in the milk, making it easier on the gut and easily tolerated even by people who are lactose intolerant.

A 24 hour fermented homemade yogurt is healing to the gut as it provides a good amount of beneficial bacteria - far more than any store bought yogurt.

What you need

2L Milk, preferably organic, grass fed (ULTRA PASTUERIZED will NOT work!)
Starter culture OR
Plain store bought yogurt without added ingredients

Kitchen tools

Instapot
food thermometer (I use a candy thermometer)
whisk

Method

Pour 2L of milk in to instapot and hit the yogurt setting. Press until it says BOIL. From here, you can let it work it’s magic. The machine will heat the milk up to the right temperature (around 180F) then automatically switch settings to cool down.

Here’s where you have to pay attention: You’ll need to add the yogurt culture - either a yogurt culture starter or plain store bought yogurt when the temperature of the milk reaches between 105-115F degrees.

This can take a while, maybe an hour or more depending on how warm your kitchen is. Alternatively, you can take the instapot insert out and place it in a bath of cold water. This speeds up the process immensely. I check the tempurature with a thermometer only a couple times and then more often when it’s getting close to the 105-115F degree range.

When this temperature is reached, I add the starter culture or yogurt, whisk it in, then change the yogurt setting to the 24 hour setting (mine has an 8 hour and 24 hour setting). The instapot will keep the yogurt at a consistent temperature for 24 hours and beep when it’s done.

No rush to get it right away if you aren’t there when the timer goes off. I just pour it in to mason jars when I am home (though leaving it too long might cause it to be too sour for your liking).

From here, I never buy store bought yogurt or yogurt starter cultures. I save about 1/2 cup (more or less) of my batch to make the next batch.

There is a way to make unheated, raw milk yogurt, if raw milk is available to you, but I haven’t tried that yet. I will let you know if I do! And I’ll let you know about all the benefits of raw dairy another time.

Homemade Yogurt with Instapot

Ingredients

2L milk
1/2 cup Plain yogurt OR starter culture

Directions

Pour milk in to instapot and hit yogurt setting to BOIL. It’ll beep when it reaches around 180 then turn the heat off to cool down.
Let it cool either by letting it sit or placing instapot insert in a sink filled with cold water. Don’t let any water get in!
Once the tempurature reaches between 105-115F, whisk in the starter culture OR yogurt.
Hit the 24 hour setting using the yogurt button, replace cover, and let it sit.
Once finished, whisk it again to smooth it out then pour yogurt in to a glass jar and store it in the fridge.
*I would wait until it’s chilled to enjoy it :).
* you can make greek yogurt by straining the yogurt in a double layer of cheesecloth overnight in the fridge. This seperates the whey out. The whey can be saved and used to start any other ferment like sauerkraut or Beet Kvass.

Easy Homemade Yogurt with Instapot (SCD, GAPS)