Yogurt has been made in the farm kitchens of Central Asia for thousands of years, using milk from farm animals. The practice soon caught on and spread and today ‘yogurt’ is popular everywhere. To this day the eastern mediterranean is the centre of yogurt cuisine with the vast majority in this region still made at home.

Yogurt is made by fermentation when probiotic cultures come into contact with milk; if non-dairy milk is used the process is entirely vegan*.

Making yogurt by any route involves the following sequence:

The Traditional approach to making yogurt requires the harvest to be separated into two parts, the small section that is saved separately being kept for use as a starter for the next batch of milk. This step is not required with Line Fermentation.

The schematics for Traditional and alternative ways of making yogurt in the following section should make it clear where each process starts (It may be useful to print these out then mark or colour-code the stages to get a clearer picture of the differences).

Preferences in the west are changing fast with non-dairy milk jumping from rank outsider to mainstream and little sign that tendency has peaked. This in turn has led to a search for alternatives to the Traditional way of making yogurt suited to the vegan kitchen. These alternatives include:

Fermentation using Chili Pepper Stems
Traditional Method Without Pre-Treatment
Line Fermentation

Each of these is covered in detail in the following sections.

*Non-dairy milk is taken to mean the same as milk made directly from plants.