Jenni Hen
Songster
I remember when I was a kid: we used to go on holiday on a farm, and as I played with the farm kids I was treated the same - 'drink the whey it's good for you'! The only other use I knew for whey was for feeding pigs.I'm making my own yogurt today. I make it with my own culture, which I've kept going from some culture I ordered online. So my only cost is the gallon of fat free milk (abbreviated FF milk, so I call it "loud milk."), and the honey I use to sweeten it.
I also drain a lot of whey out of it, so I end up with about a little less than half a gallon of yogurt, and a little more than half a gallon of whey. Which sounds wasteful, but I have a LOT of uses for whey, so I think of it as getting two products, not just one. I recycle the empty milk jug, and I don't have any other containers I need to recycle, as I use canning jars.
You do not need a yogurt maker. Don't let that be a reason not to make your own. If someone wants, I'll post my (somewhat lengthy) directions.
I used to take a jar of yogurt to work and stand my spoon up in it. I show it to coworkers and say, "Can your yogurt do this?" Then I'd turn the jar upside down and say, "Well, how about this?"
Yeah, I'm a bit of a smart aleck.
Uses for whey:
Mix with the chickens' feed to make their mash snack
Water blueberries or other acid loving plants
Cook rice
Make bread
Some people even drink it.
My bantams have mash for breakfast and I do sometimes make bread .
I used to save the last bit from a pot of live yoghurt and put it in a vacuum flask, warm some milk and fill the flask, then leave it overnight.
It's very easy to do, but I fail to resist eating all the yoghurt in the pot! We live near shops and it's even easer to think, 'oh well, I can get some more tomorrow!'.
I add soft fruit from my bushes, or the jam I made, or lemon curd (I lemon 1 egg 1 oz butter + enough sugar, mix up & heat until it sets)
I think I used full-cream unpasteurised milk, just because it's what we used to get, but I don't recall getting whey or a solid set as you describe.
We do make junket, which gives a sweet sort of buttermilk.