Almond Milk Yogurt

[surrealAmerican]

I've decided to jump in and make my own almond-milk yogurt. I don't have an actual yogurt maker, and I'd rather not have to get one. I also don't have a crock pot. (Some of the recipes use a crock pot for insulation.)

My plan:
1. Soak almonds overnight.
2. Strain them. Make almond milk out of them in a blender. Strain almond milk.
3. Cook almond milk with some tapioca starch. Cool to about 100°F.
4. Whisk in cultures.
5. Pour it in a jar, cover loosely, insulate well, and leave it alone for at least 12 hours.
6. Refrigerate.

Has anybody else here done this? Does this process sound viable?

[Lucinda]

1. I have no experience with it

But I'm looking forward to hearing about your results!

You might try a search at allrecipes.com if no one answers

Found this...didnt watch it all the way through but it may be helpful:

They mentioned 90 degrees for fermentation....I might test the temp of an oven with the light on to see if its around 90...you can also look up homemade yogurt makers for other ideas...

[noamnety]

2. I make regular milk yogurt weekly

I have a gas stove with always-lit pilot lights; I just use that for fermenting. I can use the top of the oven or the inside bottom of the stove. If the surface is warm to the touch, it works. I don't put the jars directly over the pilot lights - if it slightly burns to put my hand on the surface, I move it more to the side.

Let me know how yours turns out! I make it for the husband but I stopped having milk and I miss the yogurt. If your experiments turn out well, maybe I'll splurge and do some almond milk yogurt for myself.

[surrealAmerican]

3. Well, my first attempt failed.

I may have overheated the almond milk (in step #3), or I may have left it too long to incubate (in step #5), and I may have added too much water to the almond milk (in step #2). In any event: while it smelled like yogurt, it was a liquid. I am soaking a new batch of almonds to try again tomorrow. I found half a yogurt maker (the heating part) at a local thrift store, so I'm going to try using that for the incubation period.

[Major Nikon]

4. I've never made non-dairy yogurt, but perhaps I can help you troubleshoot

My guess is that if it smelled like yogurt, but didn't thicken, the problem is not with your incubation. The reason dairy yogurt thickens is because the cultures turn the lactose into lactic acid, and lactic acid causes the milk to curdle. With non-dairy yogurt, there is no dairy to make curds, so you must use some type of thickening agent. That's what the tapioca is for in your recipe. Tapioca, like most thickening agents, require boiling temperatures to reach their maximum thickening potential. So make sure you are bringing the tapioca mixture to a rolling boil and make sure you have enough of it to properly thicken the volume you are making.

As far as incubation goes, there are lots of ways to incubate yogurt that don't require a yogurt maker. I make yogurt all the time and I've never owned a yogurt maker. Yogurt is cultured best at around 110-112 degrees F, however it's pretty tricky to do this because at 115 degrees, your cultures will start to die. Lower temps work fine, but take longer incubation times. One of the easiest ways to make yogurt is with a thermos. When the mixture is about 20 minutes or so away from pitching your culture, preheat the thermos with boiling water. Once your mixture reaches about 110 degrees, add the yogurt culture. Remember that most cheap thermometers are easily 2 degrees off or more, so you want to make sure you are a few degrees away from the 115 degree danger zone. Empty the water in the thermos, pour in your mixture, wrap with a towel or two, and store on the top of your refrigerator or in some warm area of the house. After about 8-12 hours (depending on how well your thermos retains heat) you should have yogurt. The more sour your yogurt is, the better your culture worked. I assume this holds true for non-dairy yogurt as well.

[surrealAmerican]

5. Thanks for the advice.

Much of my research suggested even lower temperatures than that, some as low as 90°. It probably just takes longer at the lower temperatures. What I haven't been able to find is if there is any downside to boiling the almond milk. I'm concerned it may separate at high temperatures.
Another possibility would be to use either pectin or agar agar instead of the tapioca, but I've never worked with them before, and it seems there may be a learning curve. They might also still require the same high temperatures as tapioca, too. I'm hoping that making the next batch of almond milk with significantly less water will make a difference.

[Major Nikon]

6. Agar also requires boiling for maximum thickening

The same goes for Arrowroot. Two thickening agents that don't require boiling or even hot temperatures to gel are carrageenan and xanthan gum, but both are a bit hard to find locally. When using any thickening agent you haven't used before, I suggest you experiment with it before you use it in a recipe. Most do OK if dissolved in cold water first and then whisked into the recipe, but some require different levels of agitation. If you get clumps, try using a stick blender.

Lower temps require longer fermentation. My experience is that yogurt cultures generally taste better when fermented faster, but there isn't that much difference. People have been making yogurt for thousands of years using just ambient temperatures, so lower temps do work fine.

[surrealAmerican]

7. I actually have some xanthan gum.

That might be the thing to try. I may or may not need the "maximum" thickening effect. I'll try once more with the tapioca, and keep the xanthan in mind should that fail.

[tired of signing up]

8. Don't cook the yogurt, for the love of God!

You wanna preserve the enzymes in the almonds. It's unnecessary to heat anything. It just has to ferment at around 90 degrees or whatever.

[surrealAmerican]

9. It's not the yogurt that I'm cooking.

It's the almond milk before adding the cultures. If I don't cook it, how can I be sure that the bacteria that I've introduced will be the ones that thrive, rather than whatever may be randomly on my almonds?

Welcome to DU. It's always nice to hear new voices in the Cooking and Baking Group.

[Major Nikon]

10. It's a good idea to pasteurize your almond milk before culturing

That being said there's different ways you can accomplish that goal. Anything above 115 degrees is going to start killing bacteria which may include just unwanted spoilage bacteria, as well as pathogens. So one way to do it is by bringing the mixture up to a high temp, say around 165 degrees for a minute. Another way is to use a lower temp, say around 145 degrees for 30 minutes. Both methods are effective pasteurization techniques. The lower temp method is going to be better if you're concerned about enzymes, vitamin, and protein degredation.

[surrealAmerican]

11. The second batch was marginally more successful.

I made my almond milk with only about half as much water as would be "normal", was careful not to overheat it when cooking it with the starch, and incubated it in the yogurt maker (which seems to maintain a slightly higher temperature) for about nine hours.

It was still quite runny, so I added a little xanthan gum, whisking it into the yogurt with a hand-held cappuccino frother. The texture is still not exactly what I'm looking for, but it is something that could be recognized as almond yogurt. A bit more refining, and I think I can do this.