Hello and welcome back to The Stone Soup Cook!
It’s been a while since I’ve been at my desk, and I’m so glad to be back. Today, I’m going to tell you all about the fantastic Luvele Yogurt Maker I recently purchased. But first, let me explain why I’ve been away.
I wish I could say that I have been having all kinds of fun and exciting adventures traveling or that I’ve been engaging in exotic activities. The truth is that I’ve been sick. Not very sick, but it was a lingering kind of sick that made me realize how run down I am and how much I needed to just…stop. And to sleep. So that’s what I’ve been doing a lot of in the last month. Well, that and trying to put order into chaos.
For the last year and some, my life has been rather chaotic. I won’t go into too many details, but because of circumstances that were mostly out of my control, my sleep has been completely disordered for more than a year now–2-3 hours of sleep per night and then a nap during the day.
Here’s my pro-tip for the day: your body can’t do that forever–no matter how healthy you are, this lifestyle will make you unhealthy. Period.
Once I got well, I realized that in addition to my chaotic sleep routine, my house–my closets, drawers, bookcases, etc.–is bursting at the seams, disorganized and unsightly, and generally, altogether chaotic; and so I got to work. I purged clothes, shoes, books, old canned goods, old glassware, linens and wine…well, the wine got disposed of differently than the old shoes, but…you get it.
Throughout this process, I continued to think about home keeping vs. house keeping. Part of both home keeping and house keeping has got to include eliminating chaos. As well-worn as the adage “a place for everything and everything in its place” is, it is true–and it is certainly a key part of house keeping: If you don’t have room for all your stuff, you won’t ever be able to get your house clean. Enter chaos.
I can’t even breathe, much less think when I’m surrounded with chaos, whether it be chaos because of mess and disorganization, or it be that of information under or overload, or, indeed, lack of sleep. We’ve all been there. And as much as my clutter and disorganization was bothering me, I also reasoned that it couldn’t be particularly welcoming to a partner or a guest.
I’m happy to say that while my project is still a work in progress, life is a little less chaotic than it has been in a good while and I’m finally able to get back to doing something other than trying to get hold of a twirling, tumbling, chaotic mess swirling around me. I’ve also gotten some sleep, and I’m feeling better than I’ve felt in a long time–good enough to feel that I can now continue with my posts on home keeping.
So today, I’m going to continue where I left off more than a month ago–with homemade yogurt. I just made a big batch this morning and I have to say–I’ve gotten very good at it. But it all starts with the right ingredients and equipment.
If you read my previous post, you read about my discovering how truly good yogurt could be when Mr. Stone Soup and I were traveling through the California desert and stopped in the oasis town of Twenty-nine Palms. We stayed, appropriately enough, at the 29-Palms Inn:
We went for the kitsch and we wanted to stay forever for the yogurt.
After trying and failing at making yogurt with the InstantPot, I threw it out (the beginning of the great purge–and GOOD RIDDANCE) and after a good deal of research, I bought this little gem: The Luvele Yogurt Maker.
And it makes DREAMY yogurt. At this point, I should say that I bought the machine with my own money and all the opinions are my own.
I bought the Luvele Yogurt Maker a couple of months ago and I’ve only made yogurt in it, although it does say that it can do other non-yogurt fermentations.
The whole process to make a batch of basic yogurt takes about 9 hours, give or take–about an hour to prep and about 8 hours of fermentation. I got the Luvele Pure Plus Yogurt Maker. It is very lightweight and measures about 9 inches square. It comes with the machine and a 2 liter glass carafe:
The machine has the ability to keep a fermentation mixture at a constant temperature for up to 36 hours and has a temperature range of 78* to 122* F. Yogurt fermentations using traditional yogurt strains ferment in the range of 96*-106* F. I fermented my first batch at 102* for 8 hours and thought it was perfect and I’ve never seen a reason to alter that. However, I just ordered some more exotic yogurt cultures, so I’ll be doing a little experimentation now that I’ve gotten my feet wet, so to speak.
This basic yogurt recipe is based on the one recommended by Luvele: Basic Yogurt.
The instructions on the Luvele Yogurt Maker are very good and easy to follow, so I won’t go too deep into the weeds on that. Overall, I LOVE this machine. My only minor complaint is about carafe. While the carafe is very good quality and quite lightweight, once it gets full of yogurt, it gets a little unwieldy due to weight and size. At 6″ round, if you’ve got small hands, it can be a little hard to handle, especially when taking it out of the fridge–once out of the fridge for any time, it will form condensation on the exterior of the carafe, making it a little slippery. Luvele obviously must have given this some thought and has supplied a wide silicon band to place around the carafe to provide better grip. It works pretty well, but I still find that I have to be careful when taking the carafe out of the fridge. Luvele also sells a machine that makes the yogurt in four smaller containers, which may be easier to handle. However, I love having a big tub of yogurt in my fridge and more pieces seems to me to equal more dishes, so…I’m sticking, at least for now, with the large carafe.
The results of the yogurt made with the linked recipe and this machine are the best I’ve ever had–rich, thick, creamy, tangy, but not too tangy–just perfection.
In future posts, I’ll share results of future experimentation with the yogurt maker, different kinds of cultures and possibly even flavored yogurts. So stay tuned!
Until then,
Peace, love and good food,
Keri
