Table of Contents[Hide][Show]
Yogurt is a favorite food of many Americans. It is loaded with probiotics and much easier to digest than plain milk even for those with no milk tolerance issues. As a result, when folks are making the transition to fresh, unpasteurized milk from the farm for the very first time, raw yogurt is a food that most readily wish to try.
After all, if raw milk was truly as dangerous and pathogen ridden as the government would have us believe, it wouldn’t culture into yogurt so easily, would it? Consequently, folks in the process of making the mental paradigm shift to fresh dairy usually feel extremely comfortable with raw yogurt even if raw milk is still a bit too out of the box for them for the time being.
I am fortunate to have a local farm that makes absolutely fabulous raw milk yogurt. Â However, I find that I spend quite a bit of time explaining pasteurized vs raw milk yogurt to newcomers.
As a result, I thought I would spend a few minutes explaining raw vs pasteurized yogurt differences. If you’re wondering is Greek yogurt better than regular yogurt, the link provided details an explanation. However, the video below applies to that type of yogurt too.
By the way, if you wish to try your hand at making raw milk yogurt yourself as you do not have a local source available, this raw milk yogurt tutorial can assist you with the steps required.
Store Yogurt Not Cultured for the Proper Length of Time
One thing to be aware of is that large scale food manufacturers only ferment commercial pasteurized yogurt for an hour or even less! Properly made yogurt is cultured for a full 24 hours like raw milk kefir. This is a huge distinction and affects the quality and benefits of the yogurt tremendously. Incidentally, only 24 hour fermented yogurt is permitted on the gut healing GAPS diet.
If you choose to buy yogurt from the store, look for small brands. Usually, small producers ferment their yogurt for the appropriate amount of time. Avoid large brands from corporate multi-nationals like Dannon.
Another positive about small brands of pasteurized yogurt is that the milk is vat pasteurized instead of flash pasteurized. This means that the milk is subjected to a lower heat which potentially means less damage to the milk proteins.
All around, however, the best option for yogurt whether pasteurized or raw is to just make your own!
Raw vs Pasteurized Yogurt (VIDEO)
In the video below, I demonstrate the differences between pasteurized and raw yogurt. Because raw yogurt is unheated, the probiotics in the raw milk compete somewhat with the yogurt culture. The end result is a thinner, more drinkable style yogurt with a wider range of beneficial microbes than heated yogurt.
Note that yogurt heated to 117 F/ 47 C is still considered raw. Damage and destruction of enzymes and probiotics starts at 118 F / 48 C and higher (wet heat). Enzymes and probiotics withstand dry heat to a higher temperature of about 150 F / 66 C. This is why dehydrating soaked raw nuts and other foods in a warm oven maintains rawness.
You can definitely see the differences!
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
Â
More Information
Hi SHARI,
This is VERY helpful – one question though.
Don’t you have to make a ‘mother with the culture’ every week so that the raw milk doesn’t kill off the yogurt culture?
Cultures for Health
Didn’t know they even had a villi culture!!!! Awesome .. it’s even on my Resources page! LOL
I make raw milk yogurt all time with a villi culture and it is very thick.
I just mix the culture with raw milk, set it on the counter until thick. It usually takes about 24 hours.
Shari
Shari, where do you obtain this culture? Thanks.
Oh, just noticed Megan’s comment above that gets the raw milk yogurt thick by draining off the whey. Great tip, thanks Megan!! 🙂
Draining off the whey… isn’t that how Greek yogurt is made?
I have found that if do a good job thoroughly blending in my starter I get better results in the thickness of the yogurt.
I am answering my own question… http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-greek-yogurt.htm
Greek yogurt is made by draining off the whey.
I’m so new at all of this!
I started raw milk last week and made my first batch of yogurt last night. I’m so excited! But it ended up VERY sour and very loose. So I’m draining off the whey as I type this.
Question: can I use this whey in the same way as the whey from just milk as another video describes? Could I potentially use this whey to make formula?
I’ve been making yogurt all kinds of ways for two years now and if you begin with raw milk, no matter how you heat it, you will end up with a superior product. Let me explain. Go to Mother Linda’s site and she will give you much info on the subject. When I make yogurt using raw milk and don’t heat it above 110 it is very, very runny with lots of whey and curds. Cool if you want lots of whey, but at $8.50 for a quart of Organic Pastures Raw Milk, you end up with very little thick yogurt when you strain it. Okay, that’s good if you can afford to spend about $4.00 for an 8 oz jar of yogurt. Mother Linda says that you can heat the raw milk to 180, insuring thickness and still get a better yogurt than any store bought organic yogurt. Hey, if you heat it to 180, sure you kill of some good bacteria, but then you add live active cultures, don’t heat it above 110 and it’s grassfed, so how bad can that be? I think that’s the way to go. If I want to drink my yogurt, then I’ll do it raw and not heat it, but you do drink it.
PS I’ve done yogurt using pasturized cream at the top, grassfed organic milk and it works too if you heat it to 180. If you heat it to 110, then I’ve gotten a similar result, runny, runny, runny. So you strain the whey, get lots of that, and end up with very little thick enough yogurt to eat with a spoon. Mother Linda is probably correct. Go to her site.
There is no way I know of to make the yogurt thick unless you heat it to 180 or so. Much nutrition and enzymes are lost this way so I recommend raw milk yogurt for the superior digestibility and nutrition. Although .. if you heat it on the stove and the milk is raw,, much less damage is done than if the milk was pasteurized first. Still, raw milk yogurt is superior in every way to yogurt that was made by heating.
I had some of the same questions as Lynda. I’ve done the yogurt both totally raw or heated myself. I have to pastuerize some of our milk to feed to the 4 legged offspring since we are trying to eliminate an arthritis disease in our herd that is passed through the colostrum and milk. We absolutely have to keep the raw and pastuerized seperated and marked in the frig, so its easiest to pastuerize it all immediately. My pastuerizer is a waterbath type and heats to 165 degrees. I’m sure that kills a lot of stuff, but is it gentler than flash pastuerization in any way? It sure makes the yogurt thicker and smoother. I keep telling myself that I think its at least better than the stuff you could buy at the conveniance store, and try not to let myself obcess about everything being perfect.
Hi Sarah,
Thanks so much for this blog. We’ve been buying raw milk for over three years now, my family loves raw kefir smoothies made with kefir grains so 75% of our milk is cultured into kefir.
The other 25% I make into yogurt. Because my family likes a very THICK and scoopable yogurt I have been gently heating the raw milk to 180 and then cooling to 110; then stirring in the yogurt culture like Sally Fallon explains in Nourishing Traditions. I am under the impression that unless you heat the milk to 180 the natural enzymes in the raw milk will kill off the new/added yogurt culture.
For yogurt culture, I initially used the dried yogurt culture sold in packets from Whole Foods. And unless someone eats the last jar, I simply sacrifice one of the yogurts and use it to inoculate the next batch.
Is there a better way to make yogurt at home and preserve the natural raw enzymes and have it nice and thick?
I take my raw milk yogurt and drain some of the whey out so that it gets thick and creamy.
Here is a picture from my blog.
http://purpledancingdahlias.blogspot.com/2010/12/16-below-brrrrr.html
It might also be good to explain the difference between raw yogurt and raw kefir at some point. That is pretty significant as well, though yogurt is something with which folks are far more familiar. The best starting point. 🙂
I fantasize about hospitals, prisons and homes for the elderly halving the grains and serving healthy raw dairy products and bone broth. Gosh, that would make such a difference! Just those 3. If I ran the hospital …. sounds like the beginning of a great Dr. Suess book. 😉
Go Dr. Seuss!
Sarah, this is great! We were at a small Christmas get together last night and for our gifts exchange we gave some fresh eggs from our chickens and a half a gal of raw milk. The subject of yogurt came up and what were the benefits of raw milk yogurt over store bought yogurt.
Thanks
Sarah, we make raw yogurt cheese but can’t always eat it in a timely manner. How would freezing effect the enzymes and probiotics?