Serendipity, your post describing getting all your materials ready and your experience sounded just like I felt several weeks ago when I tried it for the first time too. Now I make a new jar every weekend.
I haven't had "stringy" results, but I have had batches that have portions of the jar...
I used my recent not-so-successful yogurt batch in some baking last night, and I must say it worked just fine. PLUS, none of my girls have keeled over from eating it yet!
I'm preparing another batch tonight.
Just a note on homemade yogurt: Last Saturday I used a Dannon Strawberry yogurt as my starter (as opposed to Stonyfield Plain). Even though I tried to only use the white part on top, some of the strawberry juice must have been part of it, because the resulting homemade yogurt had the nicest...
I just bought another Stonyfield fat-free for my third batch, which I will make tomorrow. It's seems it's going to be an every-Saturday affair from now on. One mason jar only lasts a week for me and my four chickens!
I just wanted to post and say that after seeing this crazy, never-ending thread keep re-appearing for months, I was finally inspired to actually try Miss Prissy's original recipe for homemade yogurt (on the first page of the thread).
It seemed daunting, but there's just a lot of steps...
This post is so popular that I keep coming back to it!
My girls love yogurt, and I realize that we'll be broke if we keep having to buy it. My hubby and I work full-time and I want to make yogurt the easiest possible way, you know, yogurt-for-dummies. I'm thinking of getting a Salton quart...