Yogurt from Dried Milk

We don’t drink a lot of milk but I do use milk to make yogurt, kefir and for baking and cereal. My preference is raw milk, which I rarely get because the closest place I can get it is about 30 miles away, which is a 60 mile round trip and I guess I don’t want it that badly. So my next favorite is whole milk.

What happens if we’re staying home and not leaving the house for two, three or four weeks, or longer? When Vince and I talked about the various types of dried milk (no fat, low fat, whole milk), I told him what matters most to me is to be able to make kefir and yogurt. I’m not even going to try making yogurt from non-fat milk.

Above is yogurt I made a few days ago using fresh, whole milk from the store.

Below is yogurt I just made from the Nestle Nido milk.

Texture:

Both have excellent texture. There was no graininess at all in the powdered milk yogurt.

Amount:

There was less whey and more yogurt in the powdered milk yogurt. I used half a gallon of whole milk for the fresh milk yogurt and got about 3 cups of whey and 4-1/2 cups of yogurt. From the powdered milk, I had made up half a gallon of milk but Vince and I drank about a cup of it doing our taste tests. From about 4 cups of milk, I got 3 cups of yogurt and 1 cup of whey. That was a significant difference.

Taste:

What else matters, right? The yogurt made from fresh milk tastes like yogurt . . that’s what we’re used to. The yogurt from the dry milk tasted just a tad more sour. I likened it more to commercial sour cream. I would prefer this yogurt for baking anything that calls for sour cream – casseroles, cakes, scones, biscuits, etc. I’m quite sure if this was the only yogurt we had, we’d be just fine eating it with a bit of honey and fruit.

Conclusion:

I’m very pleased with the dry milk yogurt. It makes me feel very good knowing I won’t have to go without my beloved yogurt, even if there’s a time we don’t have access to fresh milk.