The usual technique for cooking with the SVS involves vacuum-sealed bags, since it’s a water bath that keeps the food at a consistent temperature indefinitely. It’s useful especially for meat and chicken, for keeping them the same consistency throughout. Since vacuum-sealing yogurt is not terribly helpful because we’d need to add the starter later, we put the milk in a plastic resealable container.

We hit two problems: 1) There’s always some air in the container, which makes it float, and 2) We didn’t have any airtight containers that were the right size, so we had some milk spill into the water. (We saved it before water spilled into the milk.) The first problem ended up being not that big a deal. We tried to weigh it down with a marble mortar initially, but the mortar fell off during the heating. As I’m writing this, I’m kicking myself in the teeth for not thinking of using plastic zipper bags. I’ll do that next time. In the end, as long as the container was submerged up to where the milk was, it was fine.

We used the typical method for making yogurt. We heated the water to 185 F and put the container with the milk into the water bath. We left it there for about 20 minutes at that temperature. After 20 minutes, we took it out and put it into an ice bath to bring it back down to 110 F. While it was cooling, we dumped the water in the SVS, refilled it with fresh water and heated that water to 110 F.

When the milk cooled to 110 F, we added the yogurt culture. Adding the culture when the milk is too hot will kill it dead. You can buy starter, but I always use a few tablespoons of plain store-bought yogurt with good results. Buy yogurt with live active cultures, which is just about every yogurt I’ve ever seen in the store. Make sure it’s fresh. Some people add milk powder to make it creamier, but I find this isn’t necessarily if you’re making whole-milk yogurt.

When the yogurt is back at 110 F, let it sit for between 4 and 8 hours. We let it sit overnight, and we poured off the whey  in the morning. It’s now firming up in the fridge.

The SVS method is not any easier than doing it on the stove, but it’s not any harder, either, and it allows for more control over temperature, which makes me happy.

When you see how dead easy it is to make your own yogurt, you’ll buy the store-bought stuff only during moments of extreme desperation. It takes a bit of time, but most of that can be spent watching TV or organizing your underwear drawer while the milk and heat do their thing. Devon found that using yogurt instead of milk made for fluffier omelets. I like this recipe because it lets me have plain organic yogurt for half the price of the non-organic kind in stores.

If you’re looking for the sugary, gross stuff on the supermarket shelves, this isn’t it. This recipe will give you 4 cups of plain yogurt. Adding vanilla extract, sugar or jam will jazz it up a bit, and you control how sweet it gets. This recipe calls for a yogurt maker, but you can make it without one if you can find a consistent, low-temperature heat source, such as an oven that goes as low as 100 F. If you’re feeling experimental, you can buy your own yogurt culture, but I’ve always had good results with a small container of store-bought yogurt.

I also got my yogurt maker at Amazon, but they no longer carry the dirt-cheap one I have, and the ones they do carry are about twice the cost of the one I bought, so look around.

You can skip the dry milk if you’re using whole milk, but I recommend it if you’re making low-fat or skim yogurt.

Yogurt

• 4 cups milk (whole, lowfat or skim)
• ¼ cup dry milk powder (optional)
• ½ of an 8-ounce container of store-bought plain yogurt

Pour the milk into a medium saucepan and heat over medium heat to 185 F. Let the milk cool to 100 F to 110 F. While the milk is cooling, plug in the yogurt maker.

Add milk powder, if using, and half of the container of yogurt. (If you add the culture when the milk is too hot, you will kill off the bacteria that make the whole thing work.) Whisk the powder and yogurt in gently until they are incorporated and lumps are gone.

Pour milk into preheated yogurt maker, set up according to appliance directions, and let set for 4 to 7 hours. The longer you let it set, the tarter the yogurt will be.

When yogurt is done, drain off the whey, if desired, and cool in fridge.

Draining off a lot of the whey will give you a thicker yogurt, and I got pretty close to the texture of Greek yogurt by draining it over and over again until all the whey was almost completely drained off. Warning: This technique will cut your yield in half.