Yogurt Making in a modern Crock Pot?

[Jay3fer]

Yes, mine is a genuine (small) crock pot by Rival, and I was hoping to make yogurt overnight on the "keep warm" setting, but I'm noticing the temp is above 130. I understand they were changed a # of years ago to keep food out of the "danger zone" and thus will not go much below 140 degrees.

Any suggestions (elevating the crock slightly?) to attain a consistent (lower) temperature, like around 110?

Thanks!

[shakkar]

You dont really need a crockpot to make yogurt.In winters I put the bowl of yougurt to sit partly on my vent( yes the one that brings warm air from the furnace). Sometimes I will just leave the bowl in my toaster oven( spring /fall when the furnace seems to be off), In summers the counter top seems to work too.But having a good culture is key to getting to make yougurt right.And also if you make it often enough,atleast once a week ,the culture really work well and you need very little of it.

[tonifi]

After years of messing about trying different methods to culture my yogurt in a house that is always freezing in winter, I found that the easiest way to do it is to put the bowl in my oven & turn the light on. That's it. Just turn the light bulb on in the oven. Kind of a duh moment, really...after all my crock pot/heating pad/heating vent experiments....and the light being on also reminds me not to flip the oven on to preheat in a fit of absentmindedness. Really, overnight in the oven with just the heat of that bulb works beautifully.

[pdxgastro]

In college, an Indian friend who ate yogurt at every meal used to put milk with some yogurt mixed into it in a bowl and set it on top of his refrigerator. He covered it with a cloth, if anything.

[splatgirl]

Before I got my resident geek to build me a diy temp controller for my crockpot, I used my oven with the light turned (aka the "proof" setting if yours has this) for incubating yogurt. It worked great.

[DuchessNukem]

I want to use my crockpots for *everything* but as PepinRocks said, they get too hot. I make yogurt in my dehydrator but here's some tips from a terrific resource (including heating pad tips):

http://fiascofarm.com/dairy/yogurt.htm

[John E.]

I actually made some yogurt a couple of years ago using an Alton Brown trick and it worked. I used his recipe and put the milk with starter in a quart jar and the put it on a heating pad. I think I covered the jar with a towel too. Somewhere packed away I have a Salton yogurt maker that uses little jars. I bet I have not used that thing in over 20 years. I remember making yogurt 'cheese'. I'm not a big fan of plain yogurt and it's not easy keeping some yogurt type fruit around so I just buy fruit yogurt once in a while.

[Jay3fer]

That is a GREAT idea. I remember reading that in one of his books, I think. Anyway, I have a spare heating pad down with my seed-starting kit in the basement. Thanks!!!

[PepinRocks]

Yeah modern crock pots are great but warm on mine (crockpot cook n carry) is 180-181. BUT you can buy an $11 lamp dimmer and then control it down to do exactly what you want. You'll just have to play a bit and then mark the slider to know exactly what place on it will be the temperature that you desire.

I bought one of these dimmers to do some experimenting with sous vide in my crockpot. Here's the model - you can get them at Home Depot etc.

http://www.google.com/products/catalo...

[Jay3fer]

Interesting - thanks!