I went on a spiral of homemade yogurt videos. But what I noticed was the common step in all of these videos is to add a dollop of existing yogurt to inoculate the new one. But how was the original yogurt made? Please explain. Thank you!
In: 159
It was likely created by accident as a by product of people storing dairy, similar to cheeses.
Basically, the bacteria that “produce” yogurt or cheese are naturally occurring and will almost always contaminate dairy as it’s being harvested and stored. Nowadays we often pasteurized dairy to kill all this bacteria and more so our dairy doesn’t turn into something else.
But back in the day, any stored dairy would have hundreds of different bacteria in it, and it was largely a roll of the dice which strain would dominate and how it would affect the dairy. It’s an arms race between those little microbes. If you’re lucky, the strain that wins turns your dairy into something tasty. When you’re adding some existing yogurt, you’re skipping that game of chance and just throwing in a glob of one of those good bacteria. It just makes it faster and more certain that the desired strain is the winner in your next batch.
Latest Answers