Yogurt is the quickest and simplest of all the fermented foods you can make at home -- or it SHOULD be. More recent methods tend to complicate the process or make it less efficient. "Smart Yogurt" strips away unnecessary steps and identifies the most practical equipment, so your prep takes no more than a few minutes.

But maybe you have special needs or goals for your yogurt. For those who want to go beyond basics, "Smart Yogurt" presents a wealth of possibilities:

-- Improving taste and texture without adding to prep time.

-- Adding natural flavors and colors before incubation, without interfering with firming.

-- Making your own lactose-free yogurt to increase tolerance.

-- Boosting your yogurt's probiotic value by starting it from scratch -- without any yogurt starter, dried "heirloom" culture, or probiotic tablets.

-- Making your own non-dairy yogurt without thickeners or stabilizers.

Whether you want to simplify your yogurt making, explore new options, or just understand all the ways milk can be turned into one of the world's most popular foods, "Smart Yogurt" is your guide.

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Mark Shepard is the author of two popular books on sourdough, "Simple Sourdough" and the revolutionary "Smart Sourdough," among others. He has made fermented foods -- yogurt, sourdough, pickles, and more -- for much of half a century. Mark now lives in Bellingham, Washington, with his wife and fellow author, Anne L. Watson.

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"Slim but thorough This valuable guide's explanations and examples will inspire both new and veteran yogurt makers." -- Kirkus Reviews, June 20, 2025

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CONTENTS

Getting Started

Yogurt Facts and Fictions

Minimizing Prep

Optimizing Output

Improving Taste and Texture

Adding Natural Flavors

Reducing Intolerance

Boosting Probiotics

Appendix: The Non-Dairy Option

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GETTING STARTED (excerpt)

Let's handle a few basic questions up front.

Why eat yogurt? It's a tasty food that's both healthful and satisfying. It has all the nutrients of regular milk and more, in a form that may be digestible even for those who cannot otherwise tolerate dairy. Most yogurt also contains live bacteria that can be beneficial to gut health.

Why make your own? One reason might be saving money. The cost of homemade yogurt could be as low as a quarter of the cost of store-bought. And it's never likely to rise above half, even if you splurge on premium milk.

Another reason might be to avoid commonly added ingredients like thickeners and stabilizers. You might also want a specialized yogurt that's hard or impossible to get commercially -- a yogurt with even richer taste, or with lactose more heavily reduced, or with greatly strengthened probiotics.

Why not make your own? There are good reasons here too. Most home recipes are exacting and time-consuming. And in the end, you may wind up with a product you like less than commercial yogurt, with little or no added health benefit.

I stopped making my own yogurt for years, because it didn't seem worth the effort. Eventually, though, my experiments convinced me otherwise -- and led me to write this book. Here I hope to put to rest your reasons against and strengthen your reasons for, while also exploring possibilities that might be entirely new to you.