Instant Pot Yogurt

Adapted from: Tidbits Yogurt Recipe and Salad in a Jar

I used the basic recipe from Tidbits, minus the powdered milk and read most of Salad in a Jar's advice on homemade yogurt to make my first batch.








My Method:

Ingredients

• 1 gallon whole milk
• 1/4 cup Fage whole greek yogurt (though you can use any fresh yogurt with active cultures)

Directions

1. Add 1 gallon whole milk to Instant Pot
2. Press "Yogurt" button and press "Adjust" to boil
3. After boiling (about 1 hour and the Instant Pot will beep at you) take temperature of milk with instant read thermometer.  If it is less than 180 degrees, turn off Instant Pot and press "Yogurt" button again and "Adjust" to boil.  You will likely get the milk to 180 pretty quickly on the second boil, so you do not need to wait until it beeps.  Check temperature with instant read thermometer after about 20 minutes.  
4. Once your milk has reached 180 degrees, cool milk to less than 115 degrees.  I put the Instant Pot liner into a bowl of cool water in the sink and stirred with whisk.  It took about 15 minutes to cool this way.  You can cool in the Instant Pot but it will take about an hour.
5. Once cooled, take about 1 cup warm milk out of pot and add to bowl with yogurt starter.  Whisk until well combined.
6. Add whisked milk/yogurt back to pot and whisk to combine.
7. Place Instant Pot liner back in base unit.  
8. Press "Yogurt" button and adjust time to 9 hours.  
9. After this is done, you will want to strain your yogurt.  There are MANY ways to do this.  Strain for about 1 hour.
10. After straining, you may want to whip your yogurt - I did!.  You can also add milk if it got too thick during straining.
11. Transfer to airtight container for storage in the fridge.

My Results & Thoughts:
Delicious!  Straight out of the Instant Pot it's not as tangy as my Fage but I'm told it will get tangier in the fridge.   It's creamy, rich and perfect!

A note about straining - I really, really, really didn't want to have to purchase anything extra to strain my yogurt.  I searched the internet to find out how others strained their yogurt.  I thought about my salad spinner, but wanted to see if anyone had used that before.  I found confirmation of my idea, courtesy of needlesspounds.com. I used my salad spinner colander propped in the salad strainer bowl with a shot glass.  I lined the colander with a clean white t-shirt.  It works great and nothing extra to buy or store.

Next Day Update:  WOW!  It set up overnight and is PERFECT!  It's just as thick and creamy as the Fage and maybe even a touch creamier!  I don't think I'd change a thing!