Not-Really-Yogurt Recipes Roll-Up

Page Edition: 2025-05-01

⟲ Contents

Introduction
⇩Recipe Table
⇩Starter Details
⇩Benefits Matrix
⇩Assessing Success
⇩Troubleshooting
⇩Personal Process Notes

⟲ Introduction

Note that these are not a formal part of the WB and Undoctored programs. You are not expected to make any of these, much less all of them. Only consider them if the possible benefits are appealing, and you are up to the task of making a non-traditional yogurt. Further, expect one or more combination recipes to emerge.

The original L.reuteri recipe has the most track record, but it’s still a challenge for a lot of people to make. Ideally, we can get to a point where commercial yogurt is an option, and people can just buy these, and at clinically useful live-culture CFUs per portion.

Here’s a roll-up of what I’ve seen so far. Those marked ☐ I have not yet made. Those marked ☑ I have made (but my personal process can vary).

Full details are provided here only for those yogurts described on the blogs, or for there is not as yet any official Inner Circle recipe. The table data below is for 1 quart or liter amounts of basic substrate. Basic substrate is “half-and-half”, which needs to be just milk and cream, with nothing added; organic, pastured, for extra credit. UPS is Unmodified Potato Starch (a glucose polymer). Make a slurry with some substrate and the starter before mixing. The recipes scale, but considerations are apt to arise above one gallon in a single container.⇱ Return to ToC

⟲ Recipe Table

For UIC Members, there are official (dairy) recipes at: ⎆B. Coagulans Yogurt, ⎆B. Infantis Yogurt, ⎆L. Casei Shirota Yogurt, ⎆L. Gasseri Yogurt, ⎆L. Helveticus and B. Longum Yogurt, ⎆L. Reuteri Yogurt, ⎆High-Potency Probiotic Yogurt, ⎆SIBO Yogurt

For a non-dairy (coconut milk) variation, use the substrate base at: ⎆Coconut Milk with Guar Gum Yogurt Base

Closed containers with loose or flexible lids recommended. Sealed containers with rigid lids are not recommended, as some ferments can be a bit hyperbaric. Full containers are not recommended, unless flexible, as the ferment can be expansive. I use a large vented pot, so have no direct experience with popped lids and overflow, but both phenomena are reported.⇱ Return to ToC

⟲ Starter Details

Akker:
Akkermansia muciniphila WB-STR-0001 A probiotic that can be taken directly is Pendulum ⎆Pendulum Glucose Control. As an obligate anerobe, this microbe may be a difficult challenge for a home ferment. Also, this specific product contains four other species.

BNR17®:
Lactobacillus gasseri BNR17® in the U.S (and possibly other regions), may be ordered as:
L. Gasseri Superfood Starter from ⎆CulturedFoodLife.com, or
BIOTHIN™ from ⎆Mercola Market.
Elsewhere, try the AceBiome product ⎆from Gmarket in South Korea.

casei:
Lactobacillus casei (Shirota) initially from ⎆Yakult®

coagulans:
Lactobacillus coagulans GBI-30, 6086 initially from ⎆Schiff® Digestive Advantage® Daily. Be sure to get the correct product, as the Digestive Advantage® product line includes other species.

L. reuteri:
Oxiceutics™ MyReuteri™ (10 or 20B CFU/capsule)
Oxiceutics Gut to Glow™ (10B CFU/capsule)
BioGaia® Osfortis® (5B CFU/capsule)

infantis:
No recommendation at the moment. The prior product was reformulated and may not work.

Innovix®:
Lactobacillus helveticus Rosell-52ND Bifidobacterium longum Rosell-175, initially from Innovix Labs ⎆Mood Probiotic.

LR-DR:
Lactobacillus reuteri LR-DR initially from ⎆Oxiceutics™ MyReuteri™

Lr30242:
Lactobacillus reuteri NCIMB 30242 initially from ⎆Life Extension FLORASSIST® Heart Health
Note that this strain is not an effective producer of bacteriocins.

Oxalo:
Oxalobacter formigenes {tbd} (details pending)

rhamGG:
Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG, available in ⎆Culturelle® Digestive Daily Probiotic Capsules

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⟲ Reported Benefits

The draft of this section was deleted, as the site now has a dedicated feature for browsing the topic: ⎆Microbiome Central⇱ Return to ToC

⟲ Assessing Success

The general principles of assessing batch success are:

• One or more layers well thickened
  Initial batches often stratify into ⎆curd layers and watery whey. You can save the whey for future starter use. I freeze it in ice cubes trays when I get any liquid I can separate, but over the last 9 months, I’ve had to use dedicated starter batches (as I get no whey sep, except with L.coagulans). Later batches tend to look more like stand-up commercial yogurts.
• Distinctive aroma and tangy taste
  All successful batches will have a similar aroma and taste, not quite identical to a full-fat live-culture unsweetened commercial yogurt. If you happen to have litmus paper, or a pH meter, expect a pH below 4.5. For the L. reuteri yogurt recipe, expect 3.0-3.5 at 36 hours..
• Creamy color (for the dairy-based recipe)
  The surface color is usually more off-white than the starting materials. It can actually appear a bit dry and crumbly if the fermentation vessel has no lid. But there should be no sign of growths, molds, black spots or red/orange tinge (although there can be a few very small orange spots from residue of the mandarin flavorant in crushed Gastrus® tablets.
• Near-term effects
  If you get prompt effects, such as mood, sleep, energy, etc., they will be apparent with a successful batch.
• FAQ: Shelf Life
  A completed chilled unopened portion of a batch is usually stable for a month, perhaps longer if the container was filled allowing little or no air space. Freshly opened, expect two weeks.

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⟲ Troubleshooting

Undoctored Blog: ⎆Troubleshooting L. reuteri yogurt-making

Some additional things to consider include:

• Raw Milk?
  Raw milk absolutely must be pasteurized. This is not just a routine food safety concern. The extended times used for these fermented foods would at the very least result in an unpredictable result if any random naturally-occurring microbes are present, and some common ones could grow to frankly pathogenic CFU counts.
   
• Dead bugs?
  If a question ever does arise as to viability, a simple test is to prepare two small quantities of the substrate (H&H+inulin), and a bit of starter (such as one crushed Gastrus® tablet) added to only one of test samples. Leave the other uncultured. Put both in your incubator, or just leave out at room temperature, covered. The uncultured sample is apt to turn into sour milk, and present quite differently from the cultured sample.
  
  If the starter/probiotic was purchased from a ‘marketplace’ reseller, ⎆the possibility of it being an inert, or even toxic fake product needs to be ruled out. Run this little test.
   
• Retail ingredient junk?
  Far too many half&half products have added emulsifiers, like carrageenan and polysorbate 80. Apart from being “GRAUS” (Generally Recognized As UnSafe, pronounced "gross"🤢) on this program, effects during fermentation are not well understood. Ditto for added “vitamins” that may actually be there as preservatives (not to mention frank preservatives). I’ve had pretty good luck with both Land’O’Lakes and Horizon organic H&H.
   
• Sterility
  Utensils need to be reasonably sterile (as does the inulin or other prebiotic fiber). Whisks are a particularly challenging item to fully clean. Personally, I eliminate these as concerns by re-pasteurizing the dairy, in the fermentation vessel, with the inulin already mixed in, and the whisk present as well.
  
  Stick blenders are a significant risk on this, as the effector end can be very difficult to sterilize. Set out a cup of near-boiling water. Immerse the blender end in it for some seconds, and then run it for several more. Rinse off in a sink before using on yogurt ingredients.
   
• More sterility
  When using generational technique, the state of the storage and serving utensils needs to be considered as well.
   
• MAC (prebiotic) sterility ⟲
  Questions have been raised about trace contamination in MACs (such as inulin) becoming a non-trivial impediment to success in extended-ferment yogurts. Solutions to this include:
  0. {Please stand by}—a sterile inulin may be coming to market soon.
  1. Boil a small amount of some suitable water (perhaps 4 tbsp, filtered or distilled), and allow it to cool by a few degrees. Add the inulin and mix, using a sterile whisk. Do not add starter to this, unless you first cool the slurry to ferment temperature.
  2. [Re]pasteurize the dairy substrate with the inulin whisked in. Cool to ferment temp to add starter. This is what the author has been doing for years, with no hints of batch contamination.
  3. {Early conjecture}—Place the inulin and about 1 cup water in separate microwave-safe containers (the inulin remains dry). Place both in a microwave oven. Heat on high for 20 seconds. The inulin may not be heated to any real degree, but the RF should sterilize it. The water is just to prevent damage to the magnetron.
• Yet Another 80:20 Rule
  For smaller fermenting vessels, don’t fill to more than about 80% of capacity. These yogurts tend to be expansive, and can overflow a filled jar.
   
• Don’t Press{urize} Your Luck
  Loose or vented lids: being expansive, a tight lid can result in a ruptured vessel, and if not ruptured, the effect of the over-pressure on the ferment is not known to me.
   
• Don’t macerate the microbes
  The starter needs to be mixed in by hand, and not by using a blender (stick or otherwise). The hazards are:
  ✂ maceration
  ⇋ shear stresses
  🔥 blade tip heating (which is pretty impressive for the higher performing blenders — they can cook a soup from cold-start all by themselves, so the local heating at the blades is non-trivial).
  
  If using frozen starter, ideally thaw it slowly (I allow 8 hours in the fridge). If I screw up the schedule, I’ll set the cubes in a covered glass bowl in a larger bowl of 105°F tap water. Do not apply more heat than that.
   
• Shelf Lives
  The shelf life of a finished refrigerated yogurt might be 30 days. Opened, it might be only two weeks. On the generational method, take a starter portion when a bottle is opened, and not after it’s been used for portions over days.
  
  On the generational method, each batch provides starter for the next. Do not attempt to use the first batch as starter indefinitely (some folks have tried, with unhappy results)
   
• Drifting along
  Using generational (batch-to-batch) starter, it only takes one incidence of contamination or thermal die-off to affect all subsequent batches. I make this a non-issue with starter batches. If I happen to start from tabs, most of that batch goes into ice cube trays, frozen for use as future starter (and ditto for any whey drained off from subsequent batches). Dr. Davis reports being well past 50 batches using a generational technique, and it seems to work well for many people. But it does introduce variables that can be switched off if necessary.
   
• Generational Blend Limit
  If making a yogurt blend, such as the SIBO blend, and using the generational starter method, don’t carry the generations beyond 8-10. This is due to lack of data about how the species:species and strain:strain CFU counts shift relative to each other.
   
• Reinoculate? Don’t
  If saved or generational starter seems to have a problem, start over from retail probiotic. Resist the temptaion to add a bit of fresh retail to a failing starter. If there’s a problem that it seems like a reinoc might fix, it won’t.
   
• Environment
  We’ve had a couple of reports of failure that appear to be linked to nearby diffusers, vaporizers or humidifiers. The ultrasonic devices don’t fully sterilize the working fluids. Evaporative models are just asking for trouble. Turn them off a few hours pre-prep, or run them in a different room.
   
• On a Sour Note
  Using out-dated dairy, can provide attractive economy, but may produce a thinner result. It’s also wise to re-pasteurize when doing so, as the source dairy may also have a non-trivial population of undesired microbes.
   
• Temper, temper
  Have some confidence in what temperature your device holds. Running a dummy (water only) test ‘batch’, for at least a few hours, and checking with a probe thermometer is wise. If cold-starting, ponder whether or not the heating elements are creating bug-killing hot spots during warm up (or just eliminate this as a concern by pre-heating the substrate to near ferment temp before adding the starter).
   

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⟲ Personal Process Notes

• The program recipes are usually only for initial batches. I save any drained-off whey into an ice cube tray (or use a portion of an initial batch as dedicated frozen starter), slowly-thawed for use. I use 1 or 2 cubes/qt, approx 2½ tbsp, or 37 mL. This is the saved-starter method, benefits listed below.
   
• I routinely re-pasteurize my mix, in the final fermentation vessel, with the extender mixed in, and the whisk in the pot, for various reasons. I use 180°-195°F for 10-20 minutes, re-cooled to target temp ±2°F. This is optional on the official recipes, but required for raw dairy.
   
• I use the saved-starter method, and only save ice cubes of yogurt from each individual retail probiotic. Yogurt blends are made using one-each starter cube of each component yogurt.
   
• I haven’t used unmodified potato starch in a while.
   
• I had been fermenting for 48 hours for scheduling convenience, but am now using 36+ (or other recipe length) as planning permits.

⟲ Saved Starter Benefits

The Saved Starter method (for bacterial cultures) involves:
◕ Reserve some of a batch (usually the initial batch) …
🧊 as a number of small portions (usually in an ice cube tray).
❄ Freeze it promptly. When frozen …
📝 migrate the portions to a sealed, marked container.
🧫 Slowly thaw 1-4 portions/batch for starter use.
Why do this?

👍 Known viable starter
It came from a batch that you’ve already determined was satisfactory, eliminating any questions about the viability of any retail starter.

⏲ Starter doesn’t linger
You can pull and preserve starter as soon as the first batch is done.

🥛 Nothing goes to waste
The saved starter can include any part of the first batch, including all of any liquid fraction.

② Batch #19 is still batch #2
Using those 1st generation ice cubes, each batch made from them is effectively batch#2 (until you have to use the last cube to make more cubes, and then each of those batches is #3, etc.)

⑧ No blend cycle limit
The start-over after batch#8 rule for blends does not apply for perhaps years … until you have made the 8th generation of blended starter cubes, which is a lot of production batches.

🏃 Relaxed calendar
Because you are not needing to use some of the present batch to make the next within a short time window, you are off the must make next batch soon treadmill.

🧊 Whenever…
The cubes last until the freezer malfunctions, for all practical purposes. Do place them where they are unlikely to be affected by any automatic defrost feature.

☣ Bug defenses
Pulling starter promptly, and freezing it, dramatically reduces contamination risks.

⛔ Mishap resilience
If a batch fails, you don’t need to start over from retail probiotics.

⤨ Mix and match
You can easily switch to other strains.

🥄 Blends at will
If your cubes are all from single-species:strain recipes, use one-each of a selection to make a blended yogurt. This entirely removes generational limits on blends.

🔎 Dilution of the dilution
While any ingredients of concern in the original retail probiotic are typically reduced to ⅛ (13%) in a portion of a first batch, treating the first batch as starter{only} reduces the ingredient to ¹⁄₅₁₂ of the original amount, a fraction of 1% and usually down in the micrograms range.

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Bob Niland [⎆disclosures] [⎆topics] [⎆abbreviations]