The alt YOGT saga

 I had the amazing privilege a month ago to work in the main kitchen for the whole weekend of Known World Cooks & Bards.  The spoils of war, so to speak, that I got to take home were about four gallons of assorted milk containers that had been opened through the weekend and barely used.  All was fine and dandy, until my refrigerator gave up the smoke and I no longer had frozen milk.  So, why not try to preserve some by turning it into yogurt?

I found this recipe online that basically says to use it the same as cow's milk* with some probiotic starter (I used some Pumpkin Spice kefir I was finishing up), but that you'll want to add some gelatin thickener to get it to set.

 It was, questionable.  But I gave it a chance.  I poured it into a narrower container, stuck it into the Science Fridge, and then poured out the... it isn't whey because this isn't milk... oat water? every couple of days. 

After a week, I was able to condense it from 32 oz to just 10, where it was runny but finally had some semblance of body.  In the interim, I made two more batches of yogurt, this time with my regular condensed milk.  The first version, I added a healthy dose of whipping cream that had also not survived the freezer.  It was interesting?  But I realized there is a maximum amount of milk fat that has an ok mouth feel before you're just sucking on a stick of butter.  I used maybe an ounce left of that for the final batch I made last night, which still came out robust but tolerable.

For breakfast, I put a couple of ounces of the cow yogurt into the oat yogurt, mixed it up, and poured it over my Boo Berry for quite the delightful breakfast.

Takeaways:

- Yes, alternative milk yogurts are decent, but will require a lot of straining.

- No, more fat isn't always the answer.

- I'm going to try equal parts of almond milk and evaporated milk next week and try to find a good balance.

* My basic recipe is to just use a spoon or two of any live culture yogurt (most often than not kefir), mix it in with a can of condensed milk (or is it evaporated?  The one that does not have added sugar), and stick it in the Instant Pot on the standard YOGT setting for 8-12 hours over night, mixing at some point in the middle.  And refrigerate.