EasiYo

chrisjefferies.co.uk

EasiYo. It sounds like a rapper doesn’t it?

 

I acquired an EasiYo Yogurt Maker recently and have been attempting to make my own yogurt in it. The Easiyo maker is technically designed for cow’s milk yogurt, but I read somewhere on the internet that you can do soya milk yogurt in it and I wanted to have a go. I like the idea of adding more yogurt in my diet for these reasons|:

1. Calcium. Being vegan and not consuming dairy means I need to get calcium from other sources--I use leafy greens like broccoli and kale as well as sesame seeds in tahini. Now-a-days you can also get calcium fortified non dairy milk.

2. Good bacteria. I’m feeling like some friendly bacteria in my tum would not go amiss.

3. Protein. We drink Oatly brand oat milk and it tastes great, is high in calcium and vitamins but is low in protein. Protein makes you feel fuller longer and so I figured incorporating  some yogurt into my lunch/afternoon snack would help me as I tend to mindlessly snack if I am the least bit peckish.

4. I am occasionally still having some menopausal symptoms and soya is very good for that. Is it hot in here or is it just me?

I can buy plain soya yogurt but it tends to have lots of extra added ingredients like fillers and thickeners. Being a DIY kind of gal I wanted  to see if I could do it for less money and less ingredients. So I got an Easiyo maker.

In the past I have experimented with making my own yogurt but truth be told it was a helluva lot of time and work and it always came out quite runny. You had to sterilize everything, then heat your milk, the cool your milk (keeping an eye on your thermometer to get it hot enough/cool enough) then pour it into your jar, wrap it  several layers of towels, blankets etc and find a warm place like an airing cupboard to put it overnight. All that and it would turn out runny--EVERY TIME.  I have now come to understand that it is the nature of soya milk to make a runny yogurt and you just have to drain away unwanted “whey” and leave some tasty “curds” which is why most commercial brands add loads of artificial thickeners.

The EasiYo is pretty darned easy to use. No faffing about with heating the milk. Here is what you have to do:

1. Fill your yogurt container and lid with boiling water from the kettle and toss in a spoon to sterilize. Carefully tip the hot water out and dry with a clean towel. Take out your yogurt culture starter and let it be coming to room temperature. I like to dip the container in the hot water to warm it up a bit before you tip away the water.

all the bits assembled

2. Get a 1 litre UHT shelf stable carton of  UNSWEETENED soya milk (I can get one from between 59p and 79p) --try to get one that contains the least ingredients--some added calcium and vitamins are good but not too many artificial thickeners as weirdly too many thickeners can affect how the yogurt thickens. So can apple juice if it is used as a sweetener which is why you have to buy unsweetened. It needs to be room temperature as well.

3. Slosh some milk in the bottom of your yogurt container and throw in a few blops of plain soya yogurt--one with few thickeners but live cultures. I started my first batch using Alpro (doesn’t that sound like a dog food???) but plan to buy Sojasun next time I need it. After you’ve made one batch you can save some and use that for your starter for about 6 times and then you’ll need to buy a small pot of yogurt again. 

Mixing in the sugar, salt and starter

4. Throw in a spoonful of icing sugar. The bacteria needs sugar to help it get going and icing sugar dissolves quickly, unlike granulated sugar which needs to be heated to dissolve. Add a pinch of sea salt.

5. Put the lid on and give it a good old shake to mix it up. Put your kettle on to boil.

6. Pour the rest of the soya milk into the yogurt container and screw the lid on tight.

I'm baffled about the red thing

7. Push the “baffle” down as far as it will go (that’s the red thing--so called, I presume, because you are baffled reading the instructions trying to figure out what they are talking about) and then pour boiling water in to the top of the baffle.

8. Put the yogurt container in and the boiling water magically rises up around the sides, then close the lid of the insulated wonder jug and go to bed.

go to bed and let the magic insulating jug do its stuff

9. In the morning, take out the yogurt container  and open and marvel that it is indeed thicker. Then put it in your fridge and go to work.

Yo! its yogurt!

10. Come home and pour the yogurt into a clean tea towel or bandana and tie it up and squeeze gently for about 5 minutes until it is as thick as you want it. It sounds like someone having a wee in the sink so if you have bladder issues, go to the loo before you drain or the sound will make you do a wee wee dance. Scrape it back into a container and refrigerate. 

before (all runny)

My mum would say that seems like a lot of work but it isn’t really. It was when you had to do all that heating/cooling  nonsense. This takes about 5-10 minutes the night before and 5 minutes the next day--less time than it takes to walk to shops, stand in the queue and walk home.  The yogurt is creamy and thick, but not from artificial thickeners. I have noticed that each batch has been thicker with less liquid to drain away.

after ( 500g creamy goodness)

My only complaint is I was hoping that 1 litre of soya milk would make more like a litre of yogurt, but it really makes about 500ml after draining. Shame. But 59p-79p for 500ml is better than £1.50 for 500ml and full of artificial thickeners.



check out that lovely, thick yogurt



Plus, you can say “I made it myself” which is always good. So here is my rap about yogurt:

I’m EasiYo and I’m here to say

Eat my yogurt every day.

Yo, it’s yogurt,

Yogurt’s creamy

Yogurt’s cool.

I pity the fool

Who don’t eat my yo!

*word*