Yogurt and the Pretty Green Jar

I rigged up a white background to show off the green!

If you've liked Ball® Canning and Recipes on Facebook (and you should!)- then you've seen the announcement that while the limited run of blue jars is ending, they are starting to make GREEN jars. Even better? These come in both pint and quart sizes and really are just that pretty. They are Heritage Collection jars, and inspired by the Ball Perfection Jars. The are manufactured to the normal high quality of Ball jars and absolutely gorgeous. The color is fantastic, the lid sizes are also standard so the rings, plastic caps and accessories you have will work with these jars.
Pre-order Spring Green Jars
I love the Heritage Blue jars and blue is my daughter's favorite color. Green is my favorite color, so I'm just thrilled with the new release. If you really love the blue, you have a limited window to buy more before they are gone.

The jars shown are the quart sized Heritage Collection green jar and the Ball Collection Elite half-pint. The yogurt shown is Viili.

Viili is:
mesophilic- which means that it sets at room temperature, no heat necessary
heirloom- which means that the culture itself can be reused and shared indefinitely.

Ball® pint and quart jars are perfect for making yogurt using heirloom cultures. Why? Because it makes it even easier. My son uses a Heritage blue pint jar for his yogurt. He makes a batch, puts it in a bowl, washes the jar, then puts back in two spoonfuls of yogurt. He tops that with milk and then puts a plastic cap on it to shake it up and mix in the yogurt. Takes off the cap and puts a coffee filter on top of the jar, and then adds a canning band to hold that in place. Sets it out on his counter top until it's set and fixes two 1 cup servings of yogurt for himself. He uses the yogurt both sweet with fruit or extracts, or adds savory spices to use it as a dip or topping.

Using the quart jar, you'd put in a 1/2 cup of your finished yogurt to start your next batch. When it gets low, I measure what's left in a measuring cup, wash the jar and start the next batch. I like plastic caps for jars after they are opened. It saves wear and tear on rings to store them properly, and the caps are inexpensive, washable and reusable.

There are a few kinds of mesophilic cultures, so it's about finding the one you like best. Piima is lovely in smoothies and has a cream cheese flavor that works well with cream added to the milk. Matsoni/Caspian Sea yogurt is very tart, Viili is mild with a neat ropey/jelly like texture, Filmjolk is the yogurt I recommend to people who don't really like yogurt. It's very mild, and excellent for desserts.
The piima works so well for smoothies that I've never tried thickening it, but for the rest, adding in some cream and some instant dry milk with the milk/starter mix makes a thicker yogurt without having to add anything that's not milk.

For flavoring- my family uses all sorts of stuff. Homemade jellies and jams, frozen fruit, sugar, maple syrup, homemade caramel sauce, cocoa powder- the important thing to remember is that you need to keep some yogurt completely plain to culture your next batch. We've found the easiest is just to have all the yogurt plain in the fridge then flavor individual servings.

Ball® sent me the green jars for review purposes. The Elite jar is from my personal collection and my personal choice for packed lunches and yogurt servings because of the shape of the jar and the wide mouth.

An easier, less expensive way to make yogurt

So lately, in between drawing lots of what are hopefully very groovy mandalas (another preview at the end of this)- I've been thinking of my hippie mom a lot and started making yogurt again.

Now I've always made yogurt just like she did. A bit of plain yogurt with live cultures from the grocery store or a freeze dried culture. But this time I decided to try something new (old!) for me- mesophilic heirloom cultures.

So why? Heirloom cultures can be used over and over again as long as you keep them happy and fed. They last indefinitely and have all sorts of interesting flavor and texture profiles. Why mesophilic? The cultures I've used before are all thermophilic- which means they needed steady heat to work. Mesophilic cultures work at room temperature. No more messing with a cooler and hot tap water, or filling one side of my sink with hot tap water and keeping track of the temperature over the course of the day. No thinking "It's time to break down and buy a yogurt maker". None of that. For mesophilic cultures- all I need are clean jars, coffee filters, rubber bands and lids.

I got a set of 4 mesophilic yogurt cultures and a live buttermilk culture from Wells of Health on Etsy - no affiliation, just a happy customer. You can also get them from Cultures for Health. I chose the seller I did based on a combination of factors- they had a ropey viili was one, another was shipping cost.

The cultures arrived- about a tablespoon of each one to mix with a cup of plain milk to make a mother culture from. So I set them all up and out by putting them in mason jars with a coffee filter rubber banded over the top. I placed them all over the house so the cultures wouldn't cross each other and would stay pure. Several feet apart is sufficient, but it also gave me a chance to figure out where the best place to culture was going to be. (turned out not to be the kitchen but in my laundry room!)

The next day, my daughter and I tried teaspoons of each culture. The flavors were fantastic and different. We put the lids on them, and put them on the fridge. To make yogurt- you mix 1 part yogurt culture with 8 parts milk or milk and cream mixed, then cover with something permeable like fabric or coffee filters and set out for 8-16 hours until set. You can tell it's set by tipping the jar and seeing if the yogurt moves like a liquid, or if it moves as a mass. If it moves as a mass, it's set and ready to be properly capped and put in the fridge. Reserve some of that batch to make your next, and flavor and eat the rest!

The viili is wonderful. The consistency is about like that of thinned glue or honey. It forms gorgeous long ropes off the spoon and it's entirely too much fun to play with- the flavor is pretty mild.
My personal favorite for flavor is the matsoni- it's a tart flavor that is going to be just grand frozen or with sweet berries and honey or dates added for sweetness
The piima is the perfect smoothie yogurt, and I think with the viili will be good as a frozen yogurt with a more ice cream type flavor profile. It's a bit like a drinkable cream cheese and another possible use is cheesecake flavored smoothies adding a bit of the matsoni. Will try later.
Fil mjolk seems to be the best bet for ice cream type froyo and it's the yogurt I'd suggest for people who don't much like yogurt. It's extremely mild and it's my personal choice for trying whipped first. I think it would be a good topping.

I use a little bit of cream when culturing, and also thicken the milk a bit with powdered milk for everything but the piima. The viili was William's favorite just because it's fun. My second culture of that turned out very ropey and reminded me of hot cheese on a pizza except that it was cold and yogurt-y! The Amazing Turnip Girl loved the Matsoni/Caspian Sea yogurt. But thinks the viili is good mixed with a bit of her homemade jam. She also agreed the texture made it a really fun yogurt. I plan to try that one with matcha to make a green Nickelodeon-like slime yogurt! But just a bit of vanilla and raw sugar tastes good mixed into the finished yogurts too.

I'm sold. I love these yogurts so much. It's so easy to make and share. I'm giving some of it with instructions for making to a friend of my mom's- so if anything does happen to my cultures, she'll have a backup for me!

I also talked to my favorite local potter about making yogurt cups. She's going to make me a set of 4 10-12 oz cups with lids that I can keep in the fridge, so my morning yogurt will be in something pretty. It deserves to be. Hopefully it's going to be a family heirloom.

As promised- another sneak preview of what I'm working on for the coloring book.