Happy Teacher's yogurt homework assignment

Happy Teacher's post questions re. Homemade yogurt sent me searching. Here are some conclusions I came to:

So, how many calories are there in homemade yogurt? and how many carbs?

1. Yes, there is a little bit of sugar burning that happens when the cultures burn the milk sugar into lactic acid. However, it is not enough to subtract. Whatever the calorie and carb count is on the milk product you use- count.

2. Greek yogurt is another thing! Since you are draining whey out of your yogurt, then you get to subtract that from the totals. One cup of whey equals 60 calories, 12.6 g carbohydrate, and approx. 2 G protein. To figure nutrition, simply add the total milk calories, measure the whey you drain off, and subtract. For example, I make a Greek yogurt soft cheese that drains 2 cups of whey out of 4 cups milk (pretty thick- kind of a cream cheese consistency). So- 1/2 cup would have only 100 calories, 8-10 G protein, and 7 g carbohydrates.

Thanks, Happy Teacher for the research inspiration. Beat the heck out of my normal iPad mindless gaming.

Ohhhh..... I was wondering about that.  In a different post it mentioned that the sugars were consumed by the bacteria so it would not count.  But that would have meant when I drained it was even less calories, which didn't seem right.  This seems good though.  I did not think to measure my drained amount earlier so my calories are a total guess.  It was at least a cup though, so whew!  

Just pulled batch number two out and having it in the fridge.  Now for sure I will drain the little jars to get rid of calories.  I was thinking before to just let it be, but it is worth the extra step.  

Very cool you figured this out!!  I had just reached the point that if I start gaining after the yogurt experiements to back off :)

That was rather disappointing about the sugars not being consumed huh?  Drats

Thank you, thank you for the help.  Batch number 3 turned out fantastic!  No lumps, and when I took a spoonful out it was thick enough to hold the shape of the missing scoop- and that was before straining it!!  My daughter (13 years old) bless her soul was determined to get past my lumpy yogurt.  She is on a huge health kick and wants the homemade stuff to avoid all of the chemical additives, so she said things like, "Mom, it tastes great, but I will need a little time to get used to the texture" (yea, the lumps).  Now, she saw batch number 2 last night and she could tell it "looked right" and was pretty excited about no more lumps... there were a few in that batch, but much better.  I do think it was the dried milk doing it- perhaps I was not dissolving it well enough?  No matter, I can see now that the dried milk is not necessary if I stop being a dumb ass and heat to 180 first.  Also, thanks for the tip about the coffee filters- I rigged up something last night and pulled 10 ounces of whey off of 24 ounces of yogurt.  Disappointed that my 4 jars went down to just 2 by the time I was done, but goodness the 2 left were fantastic!  

Anyway, we are some very happy yogurt makers here!  Now I can't wait for my little yogurt cheese dohickey to come, so I can just plop some in there and make yogurt cheese.  I am also going to buy the greek yogurt strainer to help with the straining.  The coffee filters work, but I think the strainer would just be easier.  I think between the cheese strainer and the greek strainer it will hold 1 batch of yogurt so it will speed me up a bit.  

I seriously have kitchen gadget disease 

HT, we make yoghurt cheese by draining the yoghurt through multiple layers of cheesecloth. It works well, and we always have some around.

Angie in Missouri

I can't seem to wrap my head around using cheese clothe. Is it reusable and if so do you put it through a washer machine? Seriously, I am not a well versed cook!