Thank you, Annie!

I agree with Annie. Jams, preserves, cinnamon sugar, honey, bananas are great to stir into plain yogurt, which is pretty good all by iself.

PM, you are very welcome, and good luck with that yogurt!

Annie

I would use the full fat flavored. I use vanilla or coconut Oui all the time because I can no longer find the Plain. I do not taste any additional flavors at all. I only used 2 tsp of the yogurt to 4.5 cups of milk. If the flavored yogurt has the fruit on the bottom, even better. Just ignore the fruit on the bottom and scoop from just the yogurt.

My suggestion is probably colored by the fact that I only have non fat yogurt, whether flavored or not. We never buy the full fat stuff, or Greek yogurt, or any non dairy yogurts, just plain non-fat, usually from Aldi because it's cheapest. As long as I can stay organized I never have to buy any, I just use the last of one batch to make the next batch. And, because I use my big Excaliber dehydrator to make yogurt I make a gallon at a time. The grandkids like it frozen to toss into fruit smoothies, and I make them "smoothie packs" with frozen fruit and frozen cups of yogurt, just dump it into the blender with honey, jam or whatever sweetener they want.

Eventually, though, it gets too sour and then I have to start with new yogurt. That takes months and several batches, but it happens.

Annie

Be sure the yogurt doesn't have any gelatin in it. You need plain yogurt.

I have used Cabot Greek yogurt or plain Stonyfield successfully. I am not sure if either brand is available outside New England. I use the yogurt I make for the next batch. Sometimes it will eventually get too strong but usually I have a gap of eating less yogurt and have to buy fresh.

The yogurt is $3.99-4.29/quart. A gallon of milk is like $4.59/gallon. I get 4 quarts of plain and 2-3 quarts of Greek. If I am organized enough it seems worth it.

Thanks for the updates. I haven't seen gelatin in any of the yogurts here. Haven't made the yogurt yet -- too busy. A local grocery store has just done something REALLY weird to their non-fat plain yogurt and it's almost stringy coming from the container (ewwwww) so it's Aldi's or WalMart's only for me now.

Plain yogurt. It doesn't matter if non fat or full fat or somewhere in between, and you can use it in any (non-ultrapasturized) milk source.

I'd use a real yogurt, though. Steer away from the Yoplait sort of things.

Cabot Greek yogurt or plain Stonyfield successfully. I am not sure if either brand is available outside New England.

Stonyfield is a Dannon brand, so everywhere. Cabot is also widely available, at least everywhere there is Publix. For me the problem is that you can only get plain full-fat in the ginormous tubs. The smaller containers are always 0%, 2%, or flavored. (And yes, I know you can use lowfat for this.)

I see Stonyfield here, but have never seen Caboot. And like writersblock, the plain stuff is only available in quarts. Fortunately I can make yogurt for months just by using the last of my current batch, so I only have to buy a "ginormous" tub a couple of times a year. I do use yogurt a lot in cooking and baking and the grandkids like to add frozen cubes into smoothies. Buying a gallon of milk is much cheaper than buying a gallon of yogurt, and we use it up.

Annie

I freeze two tablespoons from each batch for the next batch as soon as it's ready to eat, or we forget and eat it all! I've been doing that for several years now. I haven't detected any sourness in it. Maybe I'm not paying attention?