Yogourmet 104 Electric Yogurt Maker

For those considering a yogurt maker, do recognize that you have to prepare the milk first, then you place the milk mixture into this unit. The purpose of this unit (and all yogurt makers I've seen) is to keep your culturing milk at 110F 4-24 hours, until the consistency and flavor is where you want it. It is an easy process once you do it a couple times, but the first time may be a little overwhelming. The second and third times, however, you will wonder what you were worried about, it's really very easy, and very worth it.I bought this yogurt maker after trying the Donvier and enjoying the process of making my own yogurt, but wanting larger batches. So very glad I did! I never would have realized the problems with the Donvier unit. First, the Donvier does not reach 110F, as is needed to make the usual yogurts, such as Greek, Bulgarian ("normal" yogurt), and so on. These are thermophilic yogurts, and require incubation at 110F or very close. I made batch after batch, and to get them to set well, I had to incubate for 12 hours or more, but then they were too sour for my taste. I had much better success with the Yogourmet, but attributed to just having gotten better at the method. HOWEVER, when I ordered high quality yogurt cultures from Cultures for Health (not just using a bit of store yogurt or the Yogourmet direct set starter), the detailed instructions made it clear that the incubation MUST be at 110F. I thought nothing of that, and went ahead with my first batch of Bulgarian yogurt in my Donvier, since your initial batch is smaller than usually done in the Yogourmet. It was ruined. Goat milk yogurt and cows milk yogurt. Neither set properly, and both smelled very sour. So I set up both yogurt makers to incubate some water and check the temperature. They ran for 3 hours on the counter, and then I checked the temp. 100F in the Donvier, 110F in the Yogourmet. Tried again an hour later, same result. Luckily, I had followed the CfH directions on their cultures very carefully, and saved half the powdered culture JUST IN CASE. So, SO glad I did. Set up a new batch in my Yogourmet, using two smaller glass jars instead of the large plastic insert so I could do goat and cow yogurts simultaneously. The Yogourmet activated the cultures and set both versions perfectly. I've since made batch after batch of both Bulgarian and Greek yogurts, many with goat milk and many with cow milk, in my Yogourmet with no trouble. The flavor is excellent, and with some practice on incubation times for the different types of milk, the consistency is usually perfect or darn near! (Goat milk is more difficult to get to set thickly, and many people use powdered milk to achieve this, but I do not, since from what I understand, all powdered milks contain oxidized cholesterol. Giving the YoGo extra time on the goats milk seems to work just fine. Bulgarian is still a little thinner for me, but the Greek sets up pretty thickly.)(The second problem with the Donvier is that the bottles appear to be BPA, which is usually easily identified as a clear (or colored clear) hard plastic, tolerant to heating, with #7 on the bottom. While some still say BPA is safe, I disagree, and nearly all agree that BPA should not be used to heat food, which exactly the purpose in the Donvier Yogurt Maker.)I will be getting rid of my Donvier and the extra jars. I'm actually online to buy another Yogourmet so I can make large batches of goat and cow yogurts simultaneously. You will enjoy your Yogourmet!

Having used this weekly for about seven months now, I feel it is a fine product. Its big advantages are the water jacket surrounding the yogurt, the half gallon (two quart) capacity, and the availability of a half gallon glass jar that fits perfectly into the maker (to replace the plastic container that comes with it, if you care about glass vs. plastic). In short, it produces fine yogurt consistently, maybe because the water jacket so thoroughly provides uniform temperature. For someone who eats yogurt every day, the half gallon capacity is very convenient to cut frequency of making. The glass jar is ridiculously priced at $20, but is worth it.I use whole milk, and am careful to pre-heat all components used in making the yogurt. First I pre-heat 12 oz. of water in the microwave to about 110 degrees, plug in the maker, and add the water. This ensures that the maker and the water are pre-heated to the 110-112 degrees for making the yogurt. After heating the milk to the correct temperature (180 degrees for five minutes according to the starter I am using) using the convenient thermometer that comes with it, I cool it in a big bowl of water to speed up the cooling, again using the thermometer to accurately bring it to the 110-112 desired temperature. While the milk is cooling, to pre-warm the bowl in which I combine the starter and milk, I heat in the microwave some water in the bowl. Thus when you combine these (after discarding the water), the temperature again remains at about 110 degrees. The last step is to mix the starter and heated milk well. The bottle of starter I use (Bulgarian from my local natural foods store) gives good instructions on how to do this. By the way, the Yogourmet company offers their own starter which they say finishes in about 4-4.5 hours. The Bulgarian I use takes 8, although that doesn't matter. One last thing--somewhere it says that the room temperature should be, if I recall, around 70 (or 80?) degrees. I keep my house cool (63 degrees in winter), so I've solved that by putting a sweater around the maker while it's working. All this may sound complicated, but it's really pretty simple and gets routine. The result is consistently good yogurt. I still get some liquid (whey) as I use the yogurt, but that's really no problem.