Caspian Sea Yogurt (Matsoni)
1126 days agoWell, as you guys know, I have been making yogurt using the Easiyo Yogurt Maker for about 6 months already. It is rather easy using the Easiyo Yogurt Maker to make my very own yogurt. The yogurt maker itself is pretty cheap and it works fine. All the yogurt I made using the Easiyo Yogurt Maker came out okay and I actually like the taste of the yogurt made from Easiyo’s own Yogurt sachets. Basically the Easiyo Yogurt sachet contains milk powder, flavouring and dried lactic cultures. So you add water to the milk powder and cultures and then ferment using the provided flask to maintain a high enough temperature. After a few hours, you will get delicious Yogurt for your whole family to enjoy! The problem is that those Easiyo Yogurt sachets are pretty expensive. The cheapest I can find is about S$5.60 to make 1 litre of yogurt. They have varieties which cost even more – like those organic yogurt. As you guys probably know by now, I am not rich. In fact, I consider myself to be somewhere in the lower-middle class. So those S$5.60 sachets might be a little too rich for my blood. Furthermore, making yourt requires heat loving cultures to do their stuff, so it might be a little more troublesome.
Anyway, I am thinking of buying the Caspian Sea Yogurt Cultures and make myself some Caspian Sea Yogurt. Unlike the normal yogurt, these cultures do not need the high temperatures to ferment milk into yogurt – so you can do it without the hassles of boiling the milk and maintaining the high temperatures. And unlike normal yogurt cultures, if properly handled, they are able to last forever – just keep a small amount as a starter after making each batch. So you get to eat yogurt at the price of just normal milk, without the hassles! Cool. And from what I read, they taste different from normal yogurt as well. The Caspian Sea Yogurt is a slightly sweet, semi-thick, smooth and pourable yogurt. If you guys have never tasted plain yogurt before, it is actually pretty tart aka sour. It might explain why the Japanese like the Caspian Sea Yogurt instead of the plain old yogurt. And what goes great with the Caspian Sea Yogurt? Honey of course! Aren’t those two a match made in heaven?
I am very keen to find out why the Japanese love this Caspian Sea Yogurt so much. The Japanese are not famous for liking things sour, so this yogurt should definitely not be in the sour side. If you find regular old plain yogurt too tart, you might want to try out the Caspian Sea Yogurt. Just like regular yogurt, Caspian Sea Yogurt is packed with nutrient, vitamins and minerals. And if you make it yourself, you can be assured that there are no additives or preservatives or any artificial colourings or flavourings in your yogurt. And it is just so easy to make! Just mix the culture and the milk into a container and leave it in a clean cool dry place for 8-16 hours and you will get Caspian Sea Yogurt! No need for a yogurt incubator.
For those who are interested, you can find the different yogurt starters online. The best place is eBay. I am thinking of purchasing my yogurt starter from there too.
Wow! Admin, you are really quite adventurous in the trying out the different cultures. Loved your new sharings in the new experiments on new cultures. However I must point out that there is no need to buy the easi-yo pack every new batch of yogurt. You can reuse some starters from your previous batch and it should work fine.
Personally, I love the slight runny texture of homemade yogurt with it’s mild tartness. i’m by the way using a yogurt makers from Yogi house. It’s a low tech solution with styrofoam insulator and a litre=sized glass jar that fits really nicely inside to maintain the temperature. Honestly can’t foresee anything wrong happening with this method but still felt ripped off by the price. A whopping 20bucks….