Goats Milk Yogurt Recipe

I must confess that I am not an authority on homemade goat’s milk yogurt making. On the other hand, I make the best goat’s milk yogurt!  You will love this goat's milk yogurt recipe.
I turned to the Internet for my yogurt making education. Although I learned a lot, the goat’s milk yogurt did not come out very well.

• I used the crockpot method and that was just watery with no body to it.
• A warm cooler box.
• I tried in the oven and endeavoring to keep a constant temperature. That resulted in slimy, stringy yogurt, from that I turned it into goat’s milk yogurt ice cream so that it was not wasted.
• I used different brands of plain organic goat’s milk yogurts as starters.

Then I perfected it, I think it is a combination of a good starter and a good method.

Updated Notes from when I first made this in 2016 -

I have learned that goat's milk yogurt does not thicken as much as cow's milk yogurt.

In the above photo and others on this page, the yogurt is quite thick. Each photo is from a different batch, I do have a variance in the thickness of the goat's yogurt.  Because I use store-bought yogurt as a starter, maybe the probiotics change and may not be consistent. It could also be that I differ in the method somehow. Regardless of the thickness, the flavor stays very nice.

I am going to experiment by adding a probiotic capsule that I have in the fridge. I have read that having too many bacteria may upset the consistency.  Others say that it is ok to add a capsule of probiotics as long as it includes at least one of these Lactobacillus bulgaricus, Streptococcus thermophilus, Bifidobacterium lactis or Lactobacillus acidophilus, I will do an update when I try this out.

My main reason for making my own yogurt is that I want a good variety of probiotics for my gut. Also, it is much more cost effective than buying store goat's milk yogurt and much cheaper than buying probiotic capsules.

Goat’s Milk Yogurt Recipe - Ingredients

2 liters (4 pints) of pasteurized goat’s milk
1 cup of starter, I use Meredith dairy natural goat’s milk yogurt. (No added preservatives, no thickeners or milk powders.)
Why not raw milk? It would be nice to use raw milk but it is too easy for it to become contaminated between the farm and my table. Here is a recent story of how a toddler died and four other children became seriously ill after drinking unpasteurized cows milk.
[bctt tweet="Goat’s milk is naturally homogenized and makes delicious yogurt. Recipe" username="CoolTweed"]
A nice thing about goat’s milk is that it is naturally homogenized, that is the cream does not separate from the milk and so does not need to be homogenized. It is said to be less inflammatory than cow's milk.

Goat’s Milk Yogurt  Recipe - My Method for making

1. Pour the goat's milk into a saucepan, using a thermometer heat it to 180 F (82 C)

2. Remove the saucepan from the heat and let the milk cool to 110 F.  If you want to speed up the cooling sit the saucepan of milk in a little cold water.

3. Scold a spoon and the container that the yogurt is going into. Some people boil them, I find scolding is fine. The reason is, you do not want bacteria in your yogurt that does not belong there. You just want the beneficial bacteria to incubate and not have them competing with stray bacteria.




4. When the bowl is cool add 1 cup of the starter yogurt and then 1 cup of the goat’s milk and mix them together.

Now add the remainder of the milk from the saucepan, the temperature would be around 108 F


5. Cover the yogurt, I use foil

6. Heat the oven to 200 F (93 C) and turn the oven off.


7. Use a thick towel to wrap the bowl of yogurt in. This helps to keep the temperature consistent.



8. By the time you get the wrapped bowl into the oven it will have dropped the temperature a little, but it is still hotter than most would have it. At this temperature, it will never heat the yogurt that is wrapped in the towel so don’t worry that it will overheat.

Shut the oven door and do not open it until the desired incubation period is up. It is said that leaving it for 24 hours any lactose in the milk is gone. I tend to leave mine for 21 hours and that is about the right amount of yogurt tangy flavor for me and the probiotics have had plenty of time to multiply.

Nourish your gut with probiotic goat's milk yogurt

The goat's milk yogurt is quite thick without using any thickeners. I tend to make half of it into ice cream because we love it. The other half is for eating on other treats or in our breakfast mix.

I save some yogurt to use as the starter for the next batch, but I only do that for one time and then I go back to the store-bought yogurt as a starter. The reason being that I do not want to use a contaminated starter, this can happen accidentally by using it over and over again.

I trust that you will have success in making this delicious, nutritious treat.