My wife and I have been really enjoying Mathew’s Choice. We went with the big tubs, recently, and realized a huge inconsistency…
The big tubs are about 50% thinner and have an equal amount more natural oil separation from them. I know that the oil separation is natural, but it’s significantly more and the mixed yogurt is significantly thinner than the small one.
It’s almost like they water oil down the big ones…?
It’s not even a subtle difference: I can rest a plastic fork inside the small one and it’ll stay in place; if I did the same in the big tub, it sinks. Has anyone else noticed this? I double checked and both the small and big tub were in-date.
I use a yogurt maker at home much better and cheaper. Not sure why that matthews choice yogurt is so popular tbh goes to show sometimes you make something really expensive folks just think it must be better.
I get the small ones at FamilyMart. Plain or blueberry. I like it and feel it’s more trustworthy than the other brands (for example to have more of the good bacteria), but I’m not sure if that trust is well-placed.
Easiest stuff to make at home to be honest . You can literally spoon a lump of yoghurt into a milk carton put it in the yoghurt incubator and you have a carton of yoghurt the next day.
Also supermarkets have tonnes of brands now at cheaper prices than Matthew’s Choice. Just try them I didn’t notice much difference.
Yeah, unsweetened yogurt is one of those things that used to be hard to find, but is now in pretty much every supermarket. Thankfully.
I don’t pick up much of a taste difference, but there are definitely consistency differences, and those differences seem to have little correlation with if it’s supposedly Greek yogurt or not.
It’s ridiculously easy. You don’t even need a yoghurt maker - bare minimum, a thermometer, a heavy ceramic pot, and a toaster oven does the job. You only need the thermometer once.
Put a few cc’s of water in a cup, put the cup in your toaster oven, and set the dial(s) to somewhere below the first temperature mark (which will probably be 80’C). Adjust the dial up or down until you get the water temperature stable at 35-38’C. This might take a while to figure out, but once you’ve done it, mark the correct position on the dials for future reference. Most ovens are capable of running at this low temperature.
Put 1L of milk in a heavy non-metallic pot with a close-fitting lid. Microwave to about 38’C, stirring occasionally. Remember how long it takes and set the timer accordingly next time. In a 1000W microwave it’s about 2min.
Add some yoghurt starter. I find the Uni-President ‘AB’ brand gives the best flavour:
You only need about a third of a small bottle per liter of milk.
Put the pot in the (preheated) oven, with the lid on, and leave it there for a few hours.
If you like your yoghurt thicker, strain off some of the whey (it’s not oil) afterwards, using a dofu cloth.
All you need to do in future is set your oven to the marked position, heat the milk in a pot for the appropriate time, and stir in the starter. Takes less than five minutes.
I’m not sure, but compared to the plain ones (no added sugar) the blueberry flavor has only a little higher carbs, which makes me think the sugar content is not too bad. It’s like 10g versus 18g of carbs (rough guess and I would need to check to be sure).
As a person from the land of yogurt (or roses), like the Japanese sometimes refer to my country, let me suggest another way of making it. It’s similar to finley but there’s a difference in temperature, and this type of yogurt is a bit more sour and thicker than the usual Greek style.
First you need to find a yogurt which has the bacteria lactobacillus bulgaricus, then put around 70g (if you use 1L milk) in a different cup and stir it and let it get to room temperature. During this time you heat up the milk to 45C, or a bit more than that because you want to keep it around this temperature after you pour in the jar or container you would use for the yogurt. I usually get best results if I heat the milk to about 80C, let it stay for a couple of minutes while stirring it, and then cool it to 45C in the sink.
After this just pour the milk in the jar, pour the yogurt from the cup and stir it. It’s important to stop the milk from spinning after you’re done stirring. Then you can just wrap it in 1-2 towels and leave it for 6-8 hours, no need to use oven. When it’s colder you can wrap in plastic bag first. For best results, try to do this with as little movement as possible, and do not move it while it ferments. I’ve only used the oven for a few times during the coldest days.
When it’s done you should put in the fridge to cool it, and let it stay for at least 12-24h before tasting. You can put aside 70g from this yogurt to make the next one, the bacteria are usually ok for up to 2 weeks. If you use less milk, you use a higher % of yogurt compared to the milk amount, and of course for more milk do the opposite
Yup, if it’s summertime you don’t need the oven. Just leave it on the kitchen counter.
I’ve found that it’s better to be conservative with the temperature simply because it’s easy to get it a couple of degrees too high, and then you kill your bacteria.
Inspired by what @marasan wrote, maybe you could check the nutritional labels to see whether the values are the same for both? If the larger tubs have been diluted somehow, you’d expect it to be reflected in different values (unless they’re lying).
Ah, that might explain the problems I’ve had with lactobacillus bulgaricus. It had a nice thick texture, but almost no flavour. I’ll try it again with a higher temperature!
