The inherently ‘thickest’ Greek yogurt I have found lately was purchased at a Fiesta Mart in Florida. Unfortunately, I threw out the container without writing it down, but it was called something like Yukos, –note it definately began with a ‘Y’. If I could get some, I would be cooking up a batch right now.

Otherwise, in order to thicken yogurt, all I have needed to do is increase the time it sits at 110 degrees. While 8Hrs is sufficient to get a smooth, consistent batch, it is no where near the ideal texture. One word of caution is that ALL yogurt will taste stronger as you let it culture longer. By using WHOLE MILK and Brown Cow- Cream Top for the starter you can get it seriously thick in just 9Hrs of cooking. At 12Hrs it is about as thick and rich as you will ever need. You can take either batch and invert the cups upside down! Once you stirr it, some of the thickness disappears.

As to ‘OPTIMUM TASTE’, I strongly suggest you try some NATREN STARTER, as this is about the only place in NA to procure the vital, Lactobacillus 51-Super Strain. Although the AMA shut them down, its inventor was originally granted a patent for its anti-carcenogenic qualities. Natren used to be commercially available as “Continental Yogurt,” which went out of business about 3 years ago. This product tastes much like warm butter, noticably more ’sweet’ than any other yogurt.

Because none of us have access to raw milk, they suggest you hold the milk at a full 185-degrees for 5 minutes, which definately affects the creamy-ness. Turn down the burner when you get to 180, and as you stir the milk it will have foamed about 1″ thick, producing none of the usual ’skin’ effects in the end.

The question I have is how can we get anything resembling the real, 900 year old culture, from Romania, or Bulgaria?

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m still a newbie to making yogurt, so I really appreciate your comment and everyone else’s.

Other readers – if you live in the southeast part of the U.S. I hope you get a chance to eat Dreaming Cow yogurt – it looks delicious. Here’s their website if you’d like to learn more about it and where to buy it: http://www.dreamingcow.com.

However, some proteins may take on an active role in the gut before digestion, and prior denaturation would render these useless, e.g. milk immunoglobulins, bacterial proteins.
Denaturation would probably also change the taste of the milk.

I, like probably everyone here, unsurprisingly like the taste of the raw milk more than fullfat grocery milk. So I agree that the heating process to improve yoghurt is less desirable.

42 oz pasteurized milk at room temp (whole, part skin or skim)
2 1/2- 3 teaspoons of xanthan gum (you can buy online from Bob’s Red Mill or some local grcery stores carry it)
5 oz package of yogurt starter (I used Eurocuisine ordered from Amazon).

Use a stick blender to mix all ingredients and pour into yogurt maker jars. Incubate for 7-10 hours- less for whole milk, more time for part skim, longest for skim. Add fruit/jam if desired.

If you don’t have a stick blender I’m sure a regular blender will do.

Additional thoughts/ more info:
I bought the Eurocuisine for its glass jars which are harder to come by these days- there’s alot of plastic jars out there- yuk. The yogurt maker instructions say that if you use pasteurized milk, you don’t have to boil it, just bring it to room temp, add the yogurt culture and then incubate about 7-8 hrs for whole milk, 10-12 for lowfat milk. So- I used pasteurized milk, both 1% and whole milk and added 1/2 tsp of xanthan gum per 8 oz of milk plus divided up the packet of yogurt starter (5 gram pack) between the two different milk types. The yogurt starter I used is also from EuroCuisine and bought on Amazon. So- room temp milk (no boiling), starter and xanthan gum- easy yes? Well not at first, since dissolving the xanthan gum was not happening by using a hand implement. So I brought out the big guns- my stick blender – 60 seconds- poof- everything nicely blended and already the mixture thickened- sort of the consistency of baby bananas. I put it in the yogurt maker, incubated and that was it. I got a softer smooth and creamy yogurt that I added some strawberry/banana smoothie mixture (just strawberries and bananas mushed up with the stick blender. I could hardly tell the difference between the lowfat milk and the whole milk yogurt. The instructions said that if you don’t boil the milk, the curd will be smoother and if you want a very firm mixture, you have to boil the milk. I noticed that this yogurt did not have the strong acid bite I’m used to with plain yogurt from the store. So- one question I have is did the xanthan gum interfere with the fermentation at all. I’m going to make more, some with xanthan gum and some without to see if they are different. The instruction book mentioned using raw milk and recommended boiling it. I would also like to try this with raw milk and I’d like to try another batch with less xanthan gum to find a minimum required amount. OK back to the kitchen!
PS you can go to Eurocuisine website (wwww.eurocuisine.net) and download manual for the YM100 yougurt maker- it has lots of useful info and recipes.
Robin

I hope that technique works for you. Please comment back and let me know how it works!

I have not heard of protein renaturation before now, and a quick Google search didn’t turn up anything useful. If anyone wants to comment, please feel free to do so.

Regarding the healthfulness of the renatured protein – I feel somewhat safe in assuming it would not be as nutritious or as easily assimilated as the original protein. That is a somewhat educated guess based on the information that many people do not assimilate pasteurized milk as easily as they do raw milk.