Phoon Huat is sucking all my money away! And I deserve it! Anyway, today I went to Phoon Huat at Toa Payoh and bought myself the probiotic version of Easiyo Yogurt Base (Yogurt mix). If you can’t find Phoon Huat at Toa Payoh, they are located at the NTUC next to the Cash Converters place. So if you are selling your stuff at Cash Converters, you can zip by to get some yogurt base from Phoon Huat. Yes, they do have a probiotic version available. I have been reading about probiotics and it seems that yogurt makers are adding more and more types of live cultures to their yogurt to improve the health benefits of their yogurt. Of course, being a health freak these few weeks, I couldn’t help myself but to buy the probiotic Easiyo Yogurt base to make yogurt. It is surprising that in most supermarkets and stores here, they don’t stock many yogurts which are probiotic. At most, they have one additional probiotic cultures in their yogurt. The Easiyo biolife yogurt base has 3 additional cultures. They are l.acidophilus, bifidobacteria and l.casei (abc). All are good bacteria which if taken in sufficient quantities can help maintain a healthy intestine, if you believe what is written on the Internet.

Anyway, I have taken a few photos of the Easiyo Biolife Yogurt Base and Cultures. Please take a look below.

S$5.90! If bad health don’t kill me, I am sure that Phoon Huat pricings will. If you look at the receipt, Phoon Huat got Cash Rebate one! Just wondering why is the Easiyo Yogurt mix so damn expensive? They merely contain milk powder, flavourings and cultures. Shouldn’t be so damn expensive.

Don’t confuse this with the previous sachet I had. The previous sachet is not biolife, so no extra probiotic stuff. It was just regular yogurt. Now we have this Biolife yogurt which contains more types of yogurt cultures, each giving us weaklings different good health benefits. I guess everything else is the same. Anyway, I really like the Boysenberry flavour. The taste is sort of like blueberries.

The back of the Easiyo scahet. This base is about 215g and the pathetic photo is so blur, we can’t see anything else.

Yup, the additional of Acidophilus, Bifidus and Casei cultures! Yaaaa, I am going to be healthier. Of course, I will be taking other foods as per normal. I am eating yogurt as a food supplement. Remember, always eat different types of food in moderate amounts. That way, you can be as healthy as I am. I am sick free for about a month already.

The wise smiley man talks, the poor listens. If you don’t, you will get ill from all sort of diseases. However I would like to ask the Easiyo Inventor to lower the prices of his Easiyo yogurt sachets so that we can have less stress in our lives when we check our bank accounts. That way, we might need less of those good bacteria in the yogurt and he will have to invent something else.

Okay, I have started to make the probiotic yogurt already. Very easy, takes about 10 to 15 minutes for me to complete the entire process. Now, we have just to wait for 12 hours or so and then we can enjoy eating our fresh yogurt. Bye!

Yes, you can easily just go out and buy yogurt from the store right? And in Singapore, it is just so very convenient. I am sure that within walking distance, there is a convenient store or some local supermarket which stocks yogurt. So why waste time and effort to make your own yogurt? I have to agree with you that it is so convenient to go and just buy some commercial yogurt from the store. For about 1 to 2 bucks, you eat the yogurt and then forget about it. The effort is just not worth it, you might say. Well, you know that I make yogurt at home. And you know that I actually enjoy making yogurt. I mean, isn’t it cool to see milk turn into yogurt? Just like turning apple juice into hard cider, it is very cool. And of course, you will enjoy the fruits of your labour. Furthermore, making yogurt is very easy. All you need is milk and some yogurt as a starter.

However, the main point of this post is to tell you guys the advantage of making your own yogurt. However, I would like to note that it is important to think yogurt as a food supplemental. Think of it as the butter on your toast. You should not eat yogurt as your main source of nutrients but as a supplement to your daily food intake.  And you should eat all kinds of food moderately and that includes yogurt. That is probably the best advice I can give you.

If you have problems drinking milk due to lactose intolerance, you should try yogurt as the lactose have been partially digested by the yogurt cultures and you will find that the yogurt is easily consumed by your body while providing nearly all the nutrients in milk. I would advice you to try a small amount first. Or you can just make Soy yogurt which is just as tasty (or so I heard)! In Singapore, we can get Soya Milk very easily and cheaply.

1.  For homemade yogurt, you get to choose what you put into your yogurt. Hey, that is why it is homemade. And most homemade yogurt are free from preservatives, artificial colourings and flavourings. Of course, if you DO want to add preservatives or artificial flavourings to your home made yogurt, be my guest. You can also add healthy sugar substitutes like honey or maple syrup to your yogurt. If you don’t like the taste of commercial yogurts, you can always make one that suits your taste. Furthermore, a 1kg of store bought yogurt will usually contain less actual yogurt than 1kg of home made yogurt due to the thickeners and additives.

2.  Homemade yogurt is much fresher than those you find in the stores. And in Singapore, a lot of the yogurts in our stores are from overseas, which means that it could be days before they reach the shelf. Even made in Singapore yogurt, you will never know how long they have been in the shelves. If you make it yourself, you can be sure that the yogurt is the freshest you can ever find.

3. Fresh yogurt means that the live cultures in the yogurt are in abundance. One of the most important health benefits of yogurt comes from the live cultures in the yogurt which helps to maintain a good gut flora. The in word nowadays seems to be “probiotic” which means good bacteria and if you eat yogurt with live cultures, you are actually providing your body with such good bacteria. However, the longer the yogurt is left on the shelf, the less good bacteria remains in the yogurt. So if you have the freshest yogurt, you have the most good bacteria in the yogurt.

4. Cheaper mah. Buy 1 litre of milk (S$2) and make yogurt from that. All you need is a little yogurt to act as a starter. 1 litre of yogurt cost aboout S$6-S$7 in the stores. You save about S$4 per litre of yogurt. I am sure that you can find even cheaper sources of milk if you look hard enough, just make sure they are not tainted with melamine, okay? We won’t want to poison anybody.

5. Eating yogurt is good and healthy. They provide you with vitamins, proteins and minerals to make your body strong. If you have yogurt at home, you don’t need to go out to buy yogurt. More convenient that way. But of course, you DO have to make the yogurt first. And it is a good way to introduce your children to yogurt. Teach them how to make yogurt!

6.  Easy mah. As mentioned earlier, it is very easy to make yogurt. You need milk and a batch of yogurt (with live cultures). And you will need a warm enough place to store the milk for it to ferment to yogurt.There are even varieties of yogurt cultures which do not require a warm environment to ferment, they ferment at room temperatures. But whatever it is, if you start to make your own yogurt, you will realize that it is nearly foolproof. And if you face problems, just get a yogurt maker. It needn’t be expensive. I got mine for S$30.60 and it comes with 2 sachets of yogurt mix to make 2 kg of yogurt!

7. Yogurt is very tasty. Why not make it often in your kitchen and enjoy yogurt everyday?

8. Girls will love you. I mean real men make their own yogurt instead of buying it from the stores. Hmmm….well, not exactly true but it is kind of nice if it were true.

Okay guys, that’s all I have on reasons why you should make your own yogurt. If you have a recipe or something you would like to share, please do not hesitate to leave me a comment.

If you would like to make some fresh yogurt, please visit this site for some step by step instructions: Homemade Yogurt.

Well, I couldn’t find Kefir grains in Singapore. No health store in Singapore seems to be selling the Kefir grains to make Kefir. Apparently, not everyone thinks that Kefir is very healthy. Most health stores only stock yogurt and yogurt cultures. Heck, even some health stores don’t stock yogurt starters. I guess it could be due to the fact that Singaporeans are just too busy to make yogurt. They would rather just go into a store and get some yogurt to eat. For me, I am a bit more adventurous. I like to make stuff myself. As you know, I make my own yogurt. And I brew my own beer. Now I am going to make myself Kefir. Yes, I have never tasted Kefir before but from what I read on the Internet, a lot of people are saying that not only is it healthy stuff, it tastes great as well. Something like a mix between yogurt and milk with some alcohol in it.

From what basic knowledge I have about Kefir, it is a fermented milk drink made from fermenting milk with the kefir grains. The grains are actually a colony of yeast and cultures (bacteria!) which ferments milk into kefir at room temperature. There are many health benefits to drinking kefir since the bacteria in the grains are good bacteria, something along the lines of the yogurt cultures. Just like yogurt, the bacteria in the Kefir helps digestion and makes the proteins in the kefir more easily digested by the body. It also provides a number of vitamins, calcium, phosphorus and other important stuff to our bodies. Unlike yogurt where the cultures will die in the intestines, the kefir bacteria are able to survive in that environment, helping to promote good health. Kefir is also full of enzymes, which is good for our health as well. Hmmm….looks like this kefir is so sort of health miracle food. I definitely think that drinking kefir in moderate amounts will be benefital to your health.

If you are interested in making kefir, what you need is the kefir grains. Or if you can’t find the kefir grains, you can purchase the kefir starter online. The starters are merely freezed dried kefir grains which have been carefully packed for freshness. Once you get the grains or the starter, you will need to add milk to it and let it ferment at room temperature for 12-24 hours. The longer you allow it to ferment, the thicker and more sour it is going to be, just like when you are making yogurt. In fact, it is kind of like yogurt, just with more cultures and yeast.

Anyway, I purchased the kefir starter from ebay. It cost about US$6 for 2 packs. Each pack is about to make 1 litre of kefir and can re-use up to 7 times. I think that it will arrive by next week or so and then I will be able to make myself some kefir. Hopefully, the taste of kefir will be enjoyed by my whole family.

PS: Kefir starters are not Kefir grains because the kefir starter are just some strains of bacteria and yeast extracted from the Kefir. So you would not taste the actual thing if you buy starters.

If you guys have read my blog, you should know that I am attempting to make my very own yogurt using instant milk powder and previous batches of live cultured yogurt. And you should also that that attempt sort of failed. Instead of making yogurt, I think I made cheese. The layer of yogurt was so thick that it sort of separated from whey. So you get a layer of whey on the bottom and a fluffy thick layer of yogurt on the top. And god, the taste is damn sour. Yes, I can taste the yogurty flavour but the sourness is just so very overwhelming. I should have added sugar to sweeten it. And I know now the reason is that I use too much milk powder. From my previous attempt to make Sweet Greek yogurt using the Easiyo sachet of yogurt base and cultures, I estimated that I should be using about 500ml of milk powder. However, this is dead work. The 500ml mark was meant for the milk powder AND the sugar which comprise of about 30%. So I should be using about 375ml of milk powder to make 1 litre of yogurt. The 500ml of milk powder is just too much and I think that is why the “cheese-like” yogurt was formed. I am also guessing that since there is less milk in the mixture, will there be less lactic acid formed by the yogurt cultures. And with less lactic acid, does it mean that the yogurt will taste less sour? I certainly hope so.

Please take a look at the Easiyo Yogurt Base and Cultures. All these make 1kg of yogurt.

That’s 140g of Yogurt base (thus most of the contents are milk powder) to make 1kg of natural yogurt.

Now look at their flavoured yogurt. The above picture is for the Banana Flavour and you can see, it is now 240g. And it still makes 1kg of yogurt. So that means that about 100g of the base is actually flavouring! Yes, big mistake on my part there. I didn’t expect the flavouring to take over 30% of the entire yogurt base.

Anyway I have taken a few photos of the result of my attempt to make yogurt from dry milk powder.

That’s the yellowish whey on the bottom. My first attempt to make the Greek Yogurt, the level of whey is about double of what you see now. Just amazing. And the thick yogurt actually came pouring out of the container when it was fermenting in the Easiyo flask! Yes, my photo taking skills suck big time.

A more detailed look at the whey and the yogurt on top. You can check out the texture of the yogurt and see how layered and fluffy it is. I wonder what will I do with the remaining whey. Should I drink it? I heard that it is also very healthy stuff.

Looks like yogurt from the top. Smells like yogurt too. I guess some people will say that it is yogurt. However, I am not so sure what to call it. Perhaps we should call it yogeese as it is some sort of a  mix between a yogurt and cheese.

Just check out how thick the stuff is! Feels a bit like ice-cream or those soft cheese you use to spread on your toast. You can see little pieces of yogurt/cheese falling off when you lift the spoon. Perhaps I should patent this idea and become rich and lazy. Add even more milk powder to the mixture and voila, thick cheese! You don’t need to waste time or money to get a cheese press either. But there should be a limit to the amount of milk powder you can add since I am sure the yogurt cultures will die if a certain concentration of milk sugar is present.

Now for the taste test. Once I get it on the bowl and at room temperature, the yogurt seemed to soften and it now looks a little more like yogurt. However, it is still thicker than the Easiyo Greek yogurt I tried previously. What is more Greek than Greek? Anyways, I have sweeten this with sugar so it is not that sour and surprisingly, it was delicious. Especially when you taste the tangy feeling of the yogurt. For that, I am glad.

What I am planning to do next is go and buy some commercial brands of yogurt and do a taste test. I am quite certain that the commercial ones don’t taste as nice as home made yogurt but we will never know unless we try it out.

Well, actually on Sunday but I am posting this blog to tell you guys about it today. Sorry about the delay. I have yogurt on my mind on that day. But today, it’s all about the Apfelwein. (See how it all rhythms!) This batch as started on the 18th of October and it was bottled on 23th of November. That is 5 weeks in the fermenter. Ahh….that means that it had time to mature in the fermenter. Actually it stopped bubbling actively after about 1 and a half weeks but I kept it in the fermenter for obvious reasons. For this batch, I have added 2 cinnamon sticks and the smell of the cinnamon is quite profound in the cider. When I did the bottling, I can smell the cinnamon in the cider easily.  However, it seemed to mask a little off the apple smell. So, I am not too sure whether adding cinnamon is a good idea or not. At the very least, it helps to take away some of the sourness of the very tart cider. One of the biggest complains of this Apfelwein is that it is a bit too sour, so the sweetness of the cinnamon would definitely help.

I bottled most of the Apfelwein in PET bottles. However, I worry that the smell of beer in the plastic bottles will affect the overall Apfelwein taste. No matter how I clean the bottles, there will always be some residual beer smell left behind. And I also worry that the cider smell will affect my future batches of beer. Anyway, I am out of options since I don’t have the space in my house for so many bottles. The most I can keep in my cupboards is about 60 PET bottles. I have about 15 glass bottles too. Most are from the Vitasoy Soya Bean Milk drink glass bottles. I have bottled about 8 bottles of Apfelwein. They will probably be left to mature for 6 months or more. Have you guys even tasted 8 month old Apfelwein before? I heard that it is just so heavenly! Edwort, the inventor of Apfelwein, usually keeps his Apfelwein for more than 4 months before he open the bottles for a taste. Who am I to go against the expert in Apfelwein?

If you guys are interested, I will most likely be making my Wheat beer this weekend. Well, I need to find some time to do it. The Cooper’s Wheat Beer kit has been sitting in my fridge for 2 months and I still had not touched the kit. And several of my friends have been complaining about the lack of beer for them to taste. But what can I say, I have been ill for 2 whole weeks, so I guess they will forgive me.  See you guys soon!

Having some free time for myself, I again went out and visited Sheng Siong. I saw that they have a number of drink mixes on their shelves. One of the cheapest is the Kraft Tang Drink Mix. It cost S$2.00 per pack and can mix up to 4 litres of delicious and surprisingly healthy drinks. And if you buy 2 packets, it is S$3.50 in total. 8 litres of fruit flavoured drinks for S$3.50, I must be in heaven! If only everything in Singapore is that cheap.

Anyway, I have not tried out the mix yet but I have taken a few photos. I bought the Pineapple and the Grape mix. The bored looking female Sheng Siong cashier who took my money didn’t even bothered to take one look at me when I paid her. I must be getting old. Lost my charm.

There are the two packs of 500g mix. Looks great isn’t it. I hope that it will taste even better. Looks like they have Vitamin C, Vitamin B, Vitamin A, Folate and Iron. Wow, is it as nutritious as milk???

Can’t see much from this picture. Basically it tells us how healthy the drink is with big words like C, B, FOLATE, A & IRON.

A bigger picture of the pack of Grape mix. The words are in Malayu, so I guess this is actually made for the Malaysian market and imported in by Sheng Siong to Singapore. Perhaps that is why is it so cheap. If it was made for Singapore, the price would have doubled and the quality reduced significantly.

Okay, the ingredients are sugar, critic acid, calcium Phosphate, sodium chloride, vitamins, sodum carboxymethlcellulose, Natural & Nature Identical Grape Flavours, Artifical colours and iron salt. Cool.  If only I knew what they meant. Don’t you just love jargons? It could have bat’s shit in the ingredient list and nobody would know the difference.

This is for the yellow one. The Pineapple flavour.

Well, the ingredients are a bit different from the Grape mix. It contains sugar, citric acid, sodium carboxymethylcellulose, calcium phosphate, vitamins, permitted artifical colours (including tartrazone), iron salt, natural pineapple juice solids and permitted artificial flavours. Again cool.

I will be testing the drinks once I made them. Will comment once I have done it. Once in a life time!

Well, my webhost did a data transfer yesterday and when it was done, my data was 4-6 hours old. Thus I have to rewrite this article again.

Okay, you might think I am overdoing it but well…..maybe. I do that pretty often. Anyhow I am here yet again to make another batch of homemade yogurt using the Easiyo Real Yogurt Maker set. But this time, instead of the Easiyo sachet of yogurt base and live culture, I will be using the Fernleaf milk powder I purchased the other day. The Easiyo yogurt base is actual powdered milk anyways. The only difference is that they have added freezed dried yogurt cultures (and flavours or sugar) to the mix. Due to the fact that I don’t have freezed dried yogurt cultures, I will be using my previous batch of yogurt. The live cultures in the previous batch of yogurt will help convert the milk to yogurt. Pretty cool isn’t it? You merely use your previous batch of yogurt to make more yogurt! All you need is about 2 tablespoon of the previous batch of yogurt to make about 1kg of fresh yogurt. They grow, multiply and thrive on milk sugar.

The most important part of all this is to find the correct milk powder to use and the correct amount. If the milk powder contains certain types of additives like preservatives, then it may not work. And nowadays, the milk powder we find in the stores seemed to contain a lot of other ingredients. The reason why I am using Fernleaf Family Milk Powder is because it is the cheapest I can find. And in Singapore, we don’t have much choices here.

The ingredients to make homemade delicious yogurt. The yogurt container (or jar), the flask for keeping the jar in the correct temperature range, the Fernlead Familk Milk Powder and my previous batch of yogurt. If you are attempting to make homemade yogurt this way, you can get plain store bought yogurt. Just make sure you get one that is the freshest and comes with live and active cultures.

The photo above shows me pouring the milk powder into the jar. Not difficult.

Well, I have poured about 200g of milk powder into the yogurt jar. On the left, you can see that I left a piece of the Fernleaf foil corner which I had cut off on the floor.

Since I don’t have  a weighting machine, I have to guess the level which I will be pouring the milk powder to. If you remember, the previous batch of Sweet Greek Easiyo Yogurt base, I poured to the 500ml mark. So I guess for this batch, if I poured to the same level, I should get to approximate the same amount of milk powder. Hey, yogurt making is supposed to be fun and if that doesn’t involve some trial and error, then it won’t be fun. I also enjoy experimenting. If you get it wrong, then try again later.

Pour water into the yogurt, cover the container tightly and shake the hell out of it. You will have to ensure that the milk powder is completely dissolved into the water. I found that the Fernleaf Milk Powder is rather difficult to dissolve in cool water. Perhaps next time, I will use some hot water instead. Of course, if you use hot water, you should let it cool down first before adding the live yogurt to the mix.

From the photo above, you can see that the milk level has dropped quite significantly (to the 670ml mark).  Perhaps the reason is that the Fernleaf Powdered Milk is a bit too loose and thus when pouring, it fills up more than the Easiyo Base? If so, does it mean that I will need to add more Powdered milk? No idea. Will have to see the results of the yogurt first.

Okay, top up with more water and fill it to the top of the yogurt container.

That’s my previous batch of yogurt. It is Sweet Greek Yogurt. It is better to use plain yogurt but I didn’t have any at hand and the sweetness in this Sweet Greek seemed very weak. I really doubt that 2 tablespoon of this yogurt will affect the taste very much.

That’s me adding the yogurt to the milk. After you have added two tablespoon of yogurt, gently stir the yogurt to mix it in. After that you should do as in the instructions in the Easiyo manual. If you are interested, please take a look at the step by step guide on making yogurt with the Easiyo Yogurt Maker.

I will update you guys on the result once it is done.

Update 24/11/2008: Well, I am not sure what to say about the result. Yes, it became yogurt but somehow something went wrong somewhere. First of all, the final product tastes like yogurt, smells like yogurt and looks like yogurt. However, there is a thick layer of very thick yogurt (like soft creamy cheese) on the top and a thick layer of whey on the bottom of the yogurt container after 12 hours. I had forgotten to take a photo of it because I was just so surprised to see the result.

So I guess there are two possibilities. One is that the milk powder was not completely dissolved into the water. Perhaps the water is just too cold to dissolve the milk powder completely. Hence we get a layer of thick yogurt on top and the whey on the bottom? Or perhaps the yogurt is lighter than whey and it floats on the whey itself?

Another possibility is that I did not mix the yogurt into the milk properly. The yogurt cultures are all on the top and that’s why yogurt is formed only at the top and nothing at the bottom?

Anyway, I managed to stir and mix the yogurt with the whey and it looks just like regular yogurt we see in the stores. However, the yogurt tastes a bit too tart and sour. I have tasted plain yogurt before, but never so sour.

Hello guys, it is me back yet another to make another home made yogurt. The flavour this time is Sweet Greek Yogurt. Basically it means that there will be sugar added to the Greek Yogurt. In this case, Easiyo has added the sugar into the Yogurt Base (mix) pack so you don’t have to do it yourself. If you don’t know what the difference between a normal yogurt and a Greek yogurt, then let me enlighten you. Greek yogurt is actually normal yogurt which whey has been strained away. So you get a creamier and thicker yogurt. In order to achieve this, what Easiyo has done is to add more milk powder to the mix. So instead of your usual 225gm of yogurt mix, for the Greek style yogurt, you will have 240gm of yogurt. Smart right? This way you add less water and it feels like the yogurt is thicker and all. Give the Easiyo guys a thumbs up for their great effort in getting us Greek style yogurt and making it easy for us to do.

Okay then, we shall begin my yogurt making adventure. It takes all but 15 minutes to do this yogurt.

There we have, all the ingredients needed to make the Sweet Greek yogurt. You have the Easiyo Yogurt Jar, the Easiyo flask and the Easiyo Yogurt Sweet Greek base and cutures. That’s all you need to have 1kg of very tasty yogurt (hopefully) to enjoy. And it is fresher than what you get from the stores which is probably a few days or weeks old when it reaches you.

The photo is showing me pouring the yogurt mix into the yogurt jar. The mix really does look like powdered milk. Well, it actually is powdered milk.Of course, they have added freezed dried cultures into the mix. Once the temperature gets warm enough, the freezed dried cultures will then do their job which is to convert the milk to yogurt and we will all be happy.

The powedered milk reaches the 500ml mark! We then add water to the top, cover the jar tightly and shake the jibbers out of it. You will need to ensure that there is no powdered milk left and they must all be dissolved into the water.

Add water to the jar and watch the bubbles form instantly! Pretty cool. You can hear the soft popping sound from when the milk is dissolved into the water.

Ya, all dissolved and this smells exactly like milk (well because it is milk). Well, it smells like what I had been drinking when I was younger.

You will then need to open up the jar and top up with water to the top. Remember, after topping up, shake the jar again to mix the contents. You don’t want the top to be too diluted and the bottom too thick. You will get very weird yogurt if you do that.

Put the baffle into the flask. You will need to ensure that the baffle is firmly sitting on the bottom.

You can see that the baffle is sitting firmly on the bottom of the flask. This tells you what level to pour your boiling water to. It is important to get this right as this will affect the termperature of the flask and hence the temperature of the yogurt container. Yogurt cultures need a specific temperature in order for them to thrive and grow. Easiyo has made it easy for you by providing you with guides and instructions on how much boiling water to add.

Okay, we have added boiling water to the flask. As you can see, I am using slightly less boiling water than what Easiyo had advised. This is due to the fact that Singapore’s weather is warm. If you stay in a warm climate like Singapore, you should also try with less boiling water.

After that, place the yogurt jar into the flask.

Cover the flask and leave the milk to ferment. Do not disturb the flask. Easiyo’s instructions were to leave it for 8 hours or more. However, I found that I don’t get yogurt in such short time. I will need at least 12 hours in order to get the proper yogurt thickness and firmness. Anyway, it should be no problem to leave the yogurt longer. However, it is not recommended to leave it for more than 24 hours. Remember, the longer you leave your yogurt to ferment, the more tart it will be.

Life is good when you have both beer and yogurt to enjoy.

Update 23/11/2008: A picture of the sweet Greek yogurt as below. Looks very creamy and thick, just the way I like it.

This is pretty difficult to stir to a consistency unlike the others I have tried. It tends to lump together. Anyway, for the taste, it taste just like any other plain yogurt I have tasted, except a little thicker and much easier to scope. This is supposed to be a sweetened yogurt but to me, Easiyo should add a little more sugar to the mix.

Aren’t you sick of Ribena already? Sure that is the drink we all grow up on in Singapore but seriously, it is not really a blackcurrant drink. When you pour the blackcurrant concentrate and dilute it with water, it is either too sweet or just too weak. Don’t you just hate it when that happens. There is no sure way for you to get the correct concentration for that perfect drink. Furthermore, you can’t taste the blackcurrant flavour at all.

Thus I shall introduce to you Bickford’s Blackcurrant Sparkling Fruit Juice Drink. Now this is really a drink which you can enjoy and something that you won’t feel too sickly sweet when it goes down your throat like our Ribena. I have taken some photos of the drink. You can easily find them at our local supermarkets.

Very nice look.  It contains 8% blackcurrant juice. Surely with so much blackcurrant juice in this drink, you will be able to taste the blackcurrant. Although I won’t say the taste is particularly strong, I would say this is much better than Ribena.

Cool, no artifical colours, no artifical flavourings and a great source of Vitamin C. Plus you get a great tasting and delicious drink. I think it is an especially refreshing drink in our warm Singapore climate.  Best served cold!

Contains carbonated water, sugar, blackcurrant juice, natural flavour, antioxidant and presevatives. I am guessing that the blackcurrant juice is the main source of Vitamin C. The Citric Acid is also another source of Vitamin C. From the label it says that the juice in the bottle contains about 24mg of Vitamin C, much less than the You.C100 Orange drink. Well, they are probably aiming for different markets. The You.C100 drink is meant for persons drinking it for Vitamin C. The Bickford’s Blackcurrant Juice is just a simple refreshing drink for everybody to enjoy.

I am trying my best to cut down on the amount of preservatives I take but it seems that be everywhere.  If you guys know where I can find good tasting but preservative-free products, please give me a heads up.

Well, went to NTUC and bought myself some more ingredients for making yogurt. I purchased the Fernleaf Family Milk powder. This is the dried milk powder which I will be using as my base. For the yogurt cultures, I would probably be using a little yogurt from my next batch or go buy a plain yogurt (with live cultures) from the supermarket. The way I plan to do is to mix up about 200g of powdered milk and top up to 1 litre with water. After the milk powder is completely dissolved, I will then add about 1 to 2 tablespoons of yogurt to the mixture and let them do their work in covering milk to yogurt.

So I went to NTUC and searched for the cheapest milk powder I can find. And it is this Fernleaf Family Milk Powder.

For S$6.75, you get about 635g of Milk Powder from Fernleaf. This is the proof of purchase, or in some other countries, they call it Receipt. Thanks to cashier Helen Sutiono for enduring my sour look.

Okay, here is the Fernleaf Family Milk powder. This is specially formulated for Singapore. I guess they mean they are making it with less actual milk powder and more crap since that is exactly what Singapore is.

Wow, so many vitamins, nutrients and minerals! That little girl will surely be happy drinking the milk.

It provides proteins, calcium, iron, vitamin B12, Magnesium, Vitamin A, Vitamin B2, Vitamin C, Vitamin D3 and Iodine to the entire family! It is indeed very healthy to drink milk but we are going to make use of this powdered milk to make something even more nutrious - yogurt. From of the guides and tutorials on how to make yogurt, most recipes call for milk, either fresh and bottled milk but very few use powdered milk except in part. The base of the yogurt is still the fresh or bottle milk. Adding the powdered milk is merely to ensure that the yogurt will turn out firm. For what I am doing, I am using this powdered milk (with water of course) as the base. Not too sure how it will trun out but I guess it should be the same as the Easiyo Yogurt base since they are based on powdered milk as well.

Hmmm….there is Maltodextrin and whey powder in this powdered milk. I wonder how will this two ingredients affect my final product. Maltodextrin is some sort of a sweetener while the whey powder is actually dried whey (also healthy stuff by the way). And what is calcium carbonate? A preservative? Well, I guess only time will tell whether using the Fernleaf product will work or not. I am keeping my fingers cross and hoping for the best. I would hate to have to drink 635g of milk by myself. And then I will have to go and search for a powdered milk which has no other additives other than whole milk powder.