Instant Pot Yogurt–Easy and Delicious

I recently got a jar of instant pot yogurt from a friend. Everybody in our family loves it but best of all it’s easy to make too. The instant pot takes care of everything. Give it a shot and you will be hooked.

What we need:

• Instant pot with the yogurt feature.
• Half gallon organic whole milk.
• Yogurt starter: 2 table spoon plain yogurt with live and active cultures (any plain yogurt from the grocery store works as long as it states “live and active cultures”. You can also save 1/4 cup yogurt from the batch you made. We buy plain yogurt as starter for every batch since it tastes better.

Let’s make a batch of yogurt!

1. Pour the half gallon whole milk into the instant pot. Press yogurt button until “boil” show up on the screen. No need to put on the lid, then just let the pot do the job (heat the milk to 180 degrees to kill off undesirable microorganisms). It takes 20-30 minutes and when it’s done, the pot will beep and the screen will say “Yogt.”

• 1. Turn off the Instant Pot and let the milk cool down to 116° F, then take out the inner pot, put it in a bath of cold water, and stir. Change the cold water once or twice if need be. If you have a thermometer, stop once it reaches 116 degrees. If you don’t have a thermometer, don’t worry, it’s OK if the milk is cooled down to 90 degrees (same temperature as your hands). With a spoon, lift the film of coagulated milk on the surface of the milk and discard (We want to keep the texture smooth).
• 2. Dry the bottom of the pot and put it back into the instant pot. Stir in 2 table spoons of yogurt starter. Press the yogurt button until it reads 24 (the 24 hour option yogurt tastes better than 8 hour option batch). Lock the lid and wait until the yogurt sets. It doesn’t matter if the steam vent is open or closed.

• 3. Different yogurt starter makes different thickness and flavors, even they are same brand from grocery store. Sometimes it takes longer (up to 8-10 hours to set and ready in 20-24 hours, if the starter is not fresh enough). Several times, the yogurt started to set in about 3.5 hours and ready in 10-12 hours.

The yogurt starts to set at 3.5 hours. If you want to save the seed starter, this is the time. Always remove the seed culture as soon as the yogurt sets so the seed culture will still have enough food (lactose) to eat while waiting for the next yogurt-making session in the fridge.

The yogurt is ready after 11 hours.

• 4. Once the taste is satisfactory, turn off the instant pot, stir in sugar to taste (I use 1/4 cup for a half gallon of milk). Take out the inner pot, cover it, and put in the fridge to store. It lasts about 7 days but the sooner you eat it, the better.