Yogurt Making

As followers may have picked up on I am a supporter of self sufficiency - I don't like being at the mercy of others, or at least I like to minimize the amount of people/products/services I need to rely on. A perfect example is my goal of installing enough solar to generate what I use...perhaps more, but that's a different matter altogether.

I have a home brew kit, a pie maker, and am awaiting a bread maker that someone has said they will give me. The funny thing is that I know I can produce the end products without the use of these devices but I will admit they do make the process easier in most cases.

What did I get the other day? Well if you paid any attention to the blog title you'll have "guessed" - A yogurt maker. I figured they were cheap (on sale for $20) and if it produced yogurt to the quality (or better) than the stuff I buy occasionally it'll be worth the purchase.

The maker is a EasiYo design, which is used along with the companies line of make your own yogurt starter cultures. What you do is mix the contents of the starter culture with water in a 1L container provided as part of the yogurt maker kit. Once mixed well the 1L container with the mix goes into what I'll call the incubator, which is an insulated (??) container that encloses the 1L container inside along with hot water to encourage the growth of the starter cultures. The 1L container sits in the humid, warm environment for between 8-12 hours (up to 24 hours) until the yogurt 'sets'.

For my first batch so far I used a Strawberry flavored starter packet. These are sold separately to the yogurt maker (you don't get a packet with the kit to start you off with) and costed depending on the variety - There is a premium range which obviously costs more. My packet cost ~$3.70, which produced 1L of fresh yogurt.

The kit comes with a booklet on how to use the yogurt maker, as well as some recipes, information on the other products available (extra containers, start cultures) as well as information on yogurt. As I said when I bought this it was because it was on sale, it is a novelty idea, and a bit of fun. One thing about it is how healthy the yogurt it makes is, with claims of billions of good bacteria in every spoonful (they state some yogurts only have millions of the same bacteria).

Like my home brew kit, this yogurt maker is a great practical unit for bringing science to life! I mean you can learn a lot about microbiology with one of these babies!

Below is a picture of the unit, minus the 1L container...which is in the fridge about 1/3 full which I forgot to take out for the picture (and I am too lazy redo :P)

Clockwise: 

The box the kit came in, the booklet that came with it, a packet of 'real base and culture' (sold separately) and what I described as the 'incubator' 

Not pictured: 

The 1L container that houses the culture + water mix and goes inside the 'incubator' to make it's journey into becoming yogurt (can be seen in the illustration on the kit box)

'Cheap Chic'

I believe that the new trend is to be 'cheap'. The whole economic 'crisis' really demonstrated to some people how silly and risky accumulating "stuff" really is, especially if you buy it on credit or buy materialistic objects over more important things that have an actual use and real purpose.

That's the thing about the times today - I don't think I'm the only person that only dives into his wallet when completely necessary, whereas at one time I went shopping like it were some sort of retail therapy.

Besides paying utility bills I can't even remember my last significant impulse purchase - I believe it might have been a cheap LED TV that I got for $149 which is about 21 inches and has X2 HDMI inputs, VGA, and a Digital TV tuner.

Anyhow that's nothing compared to past splurges. I don't even buy magazines or DVD's anymore. I am saving to pay off my apartment in full and hopefully get some solar panels on the place after-all but I used to buy that sort of thing all the time.

Perhaps I've matured and come to value money more, perhaps I have everything I need and so naturally I don't need to buy anything more, or perhaps it's the new in thing to live off bare essentials.

These days there are free or very cheap (and legal to boot) solutions for almost everything. I mean this blog is hosted for nothing, there is YouTube for video content, I can read news relevant to my interests online without buying a newspaper, there's plenty of free 'apps' to waste time with, Games on Facebook (not that I play them...but they are available), even free to air digital television can be received with a USB device that can cost less than $50 offering 15 channels of assorted content, and most would have built in PVR capabilities.

Books can be bought online for cheap without having to venture outside, as well as stores that offer legit downloads for music, on demand television and movies as well as software and e-books.

Things are really changing - I honestly believe the retail sector have cause for concern. As backyard, or community gardens become more and more popular and everyday gardeners become more efficient and successful at growing their own food and food to share with friends, family, neighbors and fellow gardeners the next sector I see getting damaged is the food industry. With cooking shows being all the rage it's only a matter of time as far as I'm concerned.

Personally I welcome all this as it steps away from reliance on big business, but I can see how this is really going to impact on everyday, honest people that make their living from jobs that they create.