Cultures For Health Bulgarian Yogurt Starter Culture | Dehydrated Heirloom Culture

From the brand A culture for every meal

Whether you're a DIY-er looking for a new hobby, a burgeoning chef, or just want a healthier gut, we have just what you need! We believe everyone's life can be improved by adding more homemade probiotics from cultured and fermented foods to their diet. From sourdough to kombucha to yogurt and beyond, Cultures For Health is here to help you start your rewarding journey into a natural, gut-healthy lifestyle.

Cultures for Health was founded upon the pursuit of sustainable living and a deeper understanding of traditionally prepared, extremely nourishing foods. Today, the Cultures for Health team includes bakers, brewers, cheesemakers, and more—a group passionate about the benefits of culturing and fermentation. We love homemade cultured and fermented foods and beverages for their healthy goodness, delicious taste, and rewarding DIY experience. There's nothing quite like fresh-baked sourdough or bubbly kombucha made entirely from scratch.

With our starter, you can make your own thick, creamy, delicious Bulgarian yogurt in your own kitchen! Famed for being the first known yogurt in existence, Bulgarian yogurt dates back roughly 4,000 years. The Balkans provided the ideal environment to naturally culture raw milk, resulting in a notably healthy yogurt that was linked to long life. Yogurt you make at home has more live active cultures than store-bought, and won't have any artificial preservatives—only ingredients you pick yourself! It's also much more cost-effective, as well as simply being a fun and fulfilling hobby.

This is an heirloom culture, meaning you can use your finished yogurt to culture more yogurt, and keep the cycle going for as long as you like and essentially have a limitless yogurt supply. All of our yogurt starters come in powdered form, compact and easy to store in the fridge or freezer until you're ready to activate it. While this is a thermophilic starter, meaning it cultures at 105–112°F, this can be accomplished using other appliances, such as a food dehydrator, folding proofer, crockpot, thermos, pilot light or oven light, or insulated cooler with heating pad. Any pasteurized dairy milk can be cultured into yogurt; avoid ultra-pasteurized or UHT. Raw milk can also be used, but make sure to follow special instructions in this case. You can also use non-dairy milk, but will likely need to add thickeners.

Technically, you can make infinite yogurt with this starter! All you need is 2 tbsp of your previous batch per quart of milk (up to a gallon at a time), and you can continue the culturing cycle for as long as you please. You can tell that your yogurt has set once it appears less uniform and looks more like one solid mass. The yogurt should be relatively smooth, and pull away from the side of the container. Note that yogurt doesn't fully set till it's been refrigerated. When kept in a refrigerator (at 40–45°F), finished yogurt maintains re-culturing viability for up to 7 days and remains edible for 2 weeks. Whey will last about 6 months in the refrigerator, but if it looks or smells bad at any point, discard it.

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