Q about making raw yogurt

[Guest guest]

Hi,

As I said in my previous post, I am brand new to this list. I do have

Sally Fallon's book but found the list through a mention on another

list I'm on. I'm delighted to find this resource.

I am making yogurt using organic raw milk. Using Sally's

instructions, I heat the milk to 110, inoculate it, but here is where

I stray.

Sally recommends bringing the temp down to 93 degrees and incubating

it in a food dehydrator.

I have been looking at food dehydrators and am not really crazy about

getting a plastic model. However, it looks like the stainless steel

models start with serious bucks and require more space than I have in

my kitchen.

So, the way I have been doing it is I bought this stoneware crock with

a fitted lid that is designed specifically to culture yogurt. It has

thick walls and will retain heat. Of course, one must still wrap it in

a towel.

Here's the problem. The manufacturer of this wonderful crock, Rowe

Pottery Works, instructs for making " regular " yogurt (you know, that

is heated higher) as follows: to pour a quart of boiling water into

the crock to warm it and when the milk is inoculated, pour out the

water and pour in the milk. Problem here is that the walls of the

crock are almost the temp of boiled water (I guess 200 degrees) so

when I pour in my beautiful raw milk, carefully not heated past 110

degrees, it's going to get hotter in the crock before it cools down.

Now I tried waiting until the water in the crock cooled to 110

degrees, but then the crock was really too cool to maintain any heat.

It lost its heat too quickly after that and I didn't have yogurt as I

would like to call it. I mean, it was just milky. Maybe a little

tart, but it wasn't yogurt. It hadn't taken.

So after that, I would put the milk into the hot crock and I've been

making great yogurt, BUT, here's the question, IS IT RAW?

Probably not.

Any suggestions?

Thanks...

Marie