Returning home from Texas, I ended up having a week or so where I felt that someone had removed my brain and that I didn't belong in my body. (I'm not sure where I thought I belonged but it wasn't in my body.) Apparently, it's called jetlag and it's real even if some (looking at you DH) think it's all in our heads.
Research seemed to indicate that travelling east is hardest on the body, but I suspect that travelling west and crossing the International Dateline and the Equator and losing a day and going from high summer temperatures to a bleak New Zealand winter qualifies me to suffer from jetlag.
Research also suggested that a few hours of daylight before bedtime (for those who travelled west - morning sunshine for opposite direction) would help ease symptoms. Since our first thought when we got off the plane was, "Where's the sunshine?" I knew this wasn't going to be an option and that I was just going to have to ride out the wee-early-morning-wake-ups, the falling-asleep-at-six-o'clock-bedtimes, the tummy upsets, and the mental and physical fatigue.
The first few days home I managed to "lose" my wallet in the supermarket, burn rice (have I ever done that before) and ruin several litres of milk when I tried to make my preferred yogurt, amongst other things.
Now, I've been making yogurt for years and years and years. I've used the premix packs, frozen cultures, fresh milk, raw milk, UHT milk, and powdered milk. All with a success rate of close to one hundred percent. Until jetlag kicked in.
In the interests of total honesty, I had bought a new yogurt maker, so perhaps jetlag wasn't all to blame but I suspect it played a part. My old yogurt maker still worked, but the containers that the yogurt went into were plastic and were breaking down. I couldn't find replacements, and I've never been keen on using plastic anyway. I had tried purchasing similar sized glass containers to use but they had plastic lids and they seemed to break down even quicker than the plastic yogurt containers.
So, I decided to purchase a stainless-steel yogurt maker that accepted glass jars. It arrived after we left for Texas, and it wasn't until we returned home that I had a chance to use it. Our first or second night home, I mixed up yogurt per usual, left it overnight, and woke to ... sour milk. Not yogurt. But runny, slightly sour milk.
I made another attempt, this time following the instructions in the book. And ... same result.
One of the pros of the method I have used for the past few years is that I can use either UHT milk or milk powder without having to worry about heating the milk, waiting for it to cool to the right temperature, before putting it in the yogurt maker. However, this yogurt maker and its instructions seemed to suggest that heating and cooling was the only way to go.
Despite having ruined several litres of milk, I decided I was going to continue to experiment. I mixed the milk powder and premix culture into water as I have always done in the past, but this time I used water slightly warmer than body temperature. One of the advantages of the glass jar was that I found I didn't have to use a whisk. I could put all the ingredients into the jar, put the lid on and give it a good shake and it would be well mixed. So the fact that it used less dishes and that I had recently purchased it, gave me the incentive to keep going.
I then added hot water from the tap into the yogurt maker even though the book implied this was not likely to be necessary unless the weather was really cold (well, it was!), popped the jar into the flask and screwed the lid on, and then - and perhaps this is what made all the difference - lagged the yogurt maker by placing it into an old quilted book bag that I had lying around.
If my sons are reading this they will recognise the book bag. They each had to have a book bag for school for library books. For some reason, the older ones had bags that I purchased and that did the job, but this one I made for Son#5. I'm not sure why he had a specially made one - unless he was harder on his books than his brothers. His brothers will probably say I favoured him, whereas he is likely to say he was hard done by. Whatever the reason - long forgotten now in the annals of our family history - this bag was still in my possession and it proved to be the perfect thing to pop the yogurt maker into to keep everything warm and at an even temperature.
And did it work? Absolutely.
Since the first success, I've continued to make yogurt with the same successful results. As for the jetlag, it seems to have settled down ... mostly. I still do and say some dumb things but my family would probably tell you that that's just me.
According to the dictionary, lagging means to use a material to provide insulation to pipes, water tanks, etc. In this case, I decided to provide insulation to a yogurt maker through repurposing an old book bag.
Yogurt maker is non-electric from Country Trading. It accepts standard Mason or bottling jars.
My method involves mixing 1/1/2 cups of skim milk powder (or 1 cup full cream powder and 1/2 cup skim milk powder) with 1 cup of warm water (40-45 degrees Celsius) and 1/2 cup of a premix yogurt such as EasiYo or Hansells. Both flask and jar should be preheated with hot tap water. Add fresh hot tap water to the flask, pop the jar in, screw the lid on, then practice lagging by wrapping a towel or book bag around the yogurt maker. A warm spot such as by the fire or in a hot water cupboard is a good idea in winter, too.
Alternatively, 1 litre UHT milk can replace the water and milk powder, but it would need to be heated to be used in this yogurt maker.
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