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I’ve been making my own home made no sugar soy yogurt for a couple of years. I do this, quite honestly, because there really is no good low carb, unsweetened soy yogurts out on the market – I am trying to avoid refined sugars and I seem to be allergic to whey protein, so regular plain yogurt doesn’t work for me.

This seems to be the fastest, most reliable way I get good quality, creamy yogurt each time.

Here’s what I use to make my yogurt:

• I tend to use EdenSoy brand Unsweetened Soy milk – it’s got 120 calories per 8 ounces, and 12 grams of protein per serving. Spoiler alert: I usually only have 6 ounces for each serving, so I usually get 5 days from one carton of milk. I have used other unsweetened soy milks like WestSoy with good luck as well.
• I also use Yogourmet Yogurt starter. I used to get this from Whole Foods but now I get from our local natural foods market (PCC). You can also get this from Amazon.com (obvs).
• I also purchased Ball plastic pint freezer jars – these work great and store 8 ounces each. I used to use Ball Glass jars but found the bottoms were cracking off after too many uses.
• A thermometer with an alert for both high and low temperatures. I bought the CDN DTTC-W Combo Probe Thermometer, Timer & Clock, but I’m not a fan. There’s no way to turn it off so it wastes batteries which means it shuts off at irritating times and you have to reset the low and high. But I do like how it works other than that, and it’s saved me time – without the alerts for I would let the milk get too hot or too cold when I wasn’t monitoring it constantly.

Here are the steps I follow. It takes about an hour to prep this and most of that is cooling the milk back down, and about 5 hours for the yogurt to incubate.

First I heat the milk to about 180 degrees. This batch got a little hot, but it doesn’t seem to affect the taste.

I have a bit of a sensitive stomach and because I keep the yogurt for 5-6 days, I’m not taking chances. So while I’m heating the milk I also boil water and “sterilize” the jars by pouring water in them for 5-10 minutes, then pouring the water out and letting the jars dry out a bit. It would probably be fine just to use these directly out of the dishwasher too.

I pour one of the cups of water into my Instant Pot with the wire trivet in there. NOTE: before I had the Instant Pot I’d put all four cups in a slow cooker and put the lid on it to keep it warm and use the slow cooker to incubate the yogurt.

Once the low temperature has been achieved…

I pull off the skin that has formed on the top of the soy milk. Note: I do not know if this happens with regular milk but I suspect it does.

Pouring in the Yogourmet SLOWLY. Really you should be stirring this at the same time, but I couldn’t pour, stir, and take this photo all at once.

Note: I have not tried using previous yogurt as starter – not recently anyway. I tried it one time and it didn’t work so I’ve been reluctant to try again.

Stir well until you can’t see any of the starter.

Place the jars into the “proofer” of your choice – here my Instant Pot. If you use a crock pot, put the jars into the warm water, cover, and cover with a towel to keep it warm while it’s incubating.

The instant Pot has a cool yogurt setting – I leave it at the default.

I let it run anywhere from 5-8 hours (overnight). When I open it up I tilt it to make sure I’ve successfully “yogurted”. (We’ve actually started calling it “yogting” because “yogt” is what the Instant Pot says when it’s done.

Put the yogurt in the fridge to cool!

This year my son was enamored of Advent calendars – the idea of getting a little something every day. He also wanted to give them as gifts to his friends.  He came up with the idea of a calendar that contained Magic the Gathering cards. This was a great rainy day off school project for the two of us.

Supplies

• 3 booster packs of Magic the Gathering or other cards
• 2 pieces of large card stock, poster board or cardboard (at least 14″x27″)
• 24 pieces of 2″x3″ paper
• Double sided tape
• Single sided tape
• Markers/decorating materials
• Cutting mat
• Ruler
• Exacto knife

Start by cutting 2 pieces of paper to the right size

Draw grid lines where you want the pockets to go, leave at least 1/2 an inch on each side of the card

Tape the pockets onto the grid using the single sided tape

Using a card you don't care about as a guide, put the card in the pocket and score around the top half.

Do not score all the way around, leave some parts uncut. Also don't cut the tape from the pocket above.

Decorate the front and label the pockets

Flip it over and put the cards in order in the pockets. Make sure you note where the #1 pocket is and go in the right order.

My son decided that the last day was a full booster pack as a special present.

Put double sided tape in the gutters around the cards. Make sure the cards don't touch the tape.

Put the back onto the front, carefully aligning the sides and press firmly to make sure they stick.

Trim the edges to make sure both sides are the same height/width.

Proudly present!

Well it’s not really science, but it is a bit of art. Here are some designs for a shirt we’re putting together for a running group. I’m trying to figure out what color combinations are the best.

We had a jelly tasting session today – thanks to 9 people (including my 7 year old) who were willing to come be my guinea pigs…

The method:

Five jellies were tested by 9 people. There was no forced order to tasting, but I did label them A-E (with the A=the No sugar jelly, B=lower sugar jelly and C-E was the low sugar jelly). Since I had a small number of testers, I wasn’t able to enforce a mixed the order of the samples (to avoid order effects), but knowing that people respond strongly to sugar and sweet tastes, and that the one with blackberry probably had the strongest flavor, I labeled that A and put it on the left of the counter, figuring people would try that first. I served the jellies with a mild, not too salty, stone ground wheat cracker from Trader Joes, hoping that wouldn’t influence the taste too dramatically.
The jellies were:

1. No sugar 1/2 white and 1/2 red grapes blend, made with Ball FruitJell Pectin.
2. A lower sugar “Mash up” of no sugar 50-50 blend and a low sugar 2/3-1/2 blend made with Ball FruitJell
3. A low sugar blend of 2/3 white grapes with 1/3 red grapes, made with SureJell Pectin, rejelled with some Ball FruitJell
4. A low sugar blend of 1/2 white and 1/2 red grapes, made with SureJell Pectin, rejelled with some Ball FruitJell
5. A low sugar blend of blackberry and white grapes (from 2005), made with SureJell Pectin, rejelled with some Ball FruitJell

Each guinea p… I mean… tester filled out a questionnaire regarding the taste, color and texture of each jelly. The scale was from 1 (meaning loved it) to 5 (hated it), with 3 being neutral. They were also given an opportunity to specify their favorite and least favorite jellies, as well as to leave some comments.
The results:

The overall favorite with 6 vote: Low sugar blackberry-grape (E) jelly made from my sister’s juice from last year.

Second overall favorite: tie with the 1/2-1/2 (D) and 2/3-1/3 (C) low sugar varieties (with 2 votes each, someone voted twice)

The least favorite (with 7 votes) was the no sugar 1/2-1/2 blend (A). The mash up (B) got 2 votes for least favorite.

The highest ratings on taste went to low sugar blackberry-grape (E), followed by the low sugar 1/2-1/2 blend (D). Most people liked the taste of these the low sugar jellies, although two testers (as well as myself) felt they were too sweet. (I would hate to try the results of the full sugar recipe which calls for double the amount of sugar!!!!)
The color of the blackberry-grape blend (E) was the best received (averaging out to a score somewhere between love and liked), followed by the 2/3-1/3 low sugar mix (C) , with the 1/2-1/2 (D) blend coming in third, which were both liked.
And for texture, all of the low sugar jellies (the blackberry-grape (E), 2/3-1/3 low sugar mix (C), and the 1/2-1/2 (D) tied as being “liked.”

One tester gave the following detailed comments:

1. Bitter, and too light in color. Not enough flavor. Bitter aftertaste. Would use in cooking only.
2. Good consistency, still too light in color. Flavor it a little bland
3. Very nice color. Higher sugar content most resembles honey. Good consistency – not much more grape flavor than B.
4. Very nice consistency – nice clarity. More flavor than all the other previous ones. So far my favorite
5. Love the color. Consistencie is ok, but not as good as D. This was my favorite overall.

Future work:

At first I was thinking it was the Ball Fruit Jell that gave the no sugar and lower sugar versions their cloudy appearance (note to self, put some pictures up on the site). Ball Fruit Jell contains “Dextrose, pectin, locust bean gum and xanthan gum” whereas the Sure Jell has”Dextrose, Fruit Pectin, Fumaric Acid (for Tartness) and Sodium Citrate.” I am sure the locust bean gum and xanthan gum are to help the jell well… jell (how many times have you read those ingredients on ice cream?), so I thought maybe that makes it cloudy.

In retrospect, however, I used the Fruit Jell when I cooked the jellies the second time around to help them set without having to boil them to death. So likely it’s not the pectin that is the reason for the cloudineses. I think it’s just the lack of sugar. One way to test that would be to use only the Fruit Jell with sugar to see if a grape jelly made with that comes out clearer.

As for the tartness of the no-sugar kind – I wouldn’t be able to tell you if it’s the grapes or the pectin which is making it tart. The grapes are not super sweet off the vine – particularly if you eat the skins. And I really did try to squeeze out every ounce of juice. One tester, who makes wine, told met that if you squeeze the grapes too hard, you start to break the shell of the seeds, which effects the flavor. Maybe next year I’ll press the grapes a different way (using a chinoise or other method, not my juicer which could be making the juice more bitter.). My sister did not use a juicer last year for making the blackberry-grape juice.
The other thing I’d like to try, but not much of, is using splenda for a no-sugar version of the jelly, just to see how that works out with respect to cloudiness and taste. I would also like to try either version of the pectin with less sugar than is called for – it may require more boiling to get the jelly to set, but I really would like to find some way to make a much lower sugar version of the jelly (maybe 1/4 of the “normal” amount of sugar, i.e. 1/2 the amount in the “low sugar” recipe).
Finally, blending the grapes with other types of fruit appears to be a big win and so experimenting with different blends may be in my future. I’d also like to try an all red-grape variety of the jelly, if the vines cooperate next year.

Conclusions:

Over all the jelly making and testing was a success. I have quite a number of things I can try next year and I certainly know what *not* to try again (i.e. the no sugar version). Meanwhile I have a LOT of jelly to eat and give away as gifts 😉

Thanks to all my testers and my dear wonderful hubby who has put up with me having fun being a scientist in the kitchen again.

Today I re-cooked the batch with 50% red grape juice, 50% white grape juice. I had exactly 8 cups of the jelly left in the fridge to re-jell. The test batch I did worked really well, but just to be complete I tested as I rejelled this larger batch. Again I did the cold spoon test at 5 minutes, and it wasn’t quite jelled enough. I skipped the 10 minutes test and just added 8 Tablespoons of the No Sugar (FruitJell) pectin mixture that was also stored in the fridge. A few minutes later I had the consistency I was looking for.

The second thing I did was re-jell the 2 last no-sugar jelly. To this I added what was left of the 50/50 since that only filled 1/2 a jar. Still I got less than from the 2.5 jars I put in, I got about 1 7/8 jars back out – which means there’s a lot of water boiling off. But maybe now I have a ratio.

I managed NOT to touch the jars (significantly) all day, and even kept my 7 year old away from them. When we finally tested them, none had really jelled to my satisfaction, including the batch we tried re-jelling.

So I resorted to the one thing I knew well. The web. A few searches later, I found this incredibly helpful website. It says, among other things:

• Jam can ONLY be made in rather small batches – about 6 cups at a time… (we were doing batches of up to 16.5 cups).
• The web site author uses about 20% more pectin than the box/recipe calls for. I.e. open a box and use a little bit more.
• Jelly can take up to 2 weeks to set.
• A way to test for “jell” by putting a spoon in ice water, then taking a spoonful of the jelly and letting it come to room temperature. If it’s not setting quite right, then add more pectin and let it hard boil for 1 more minute

Tonight I kept it simple. The first test was to take the small 1 cup 50/50 batch and re-heat it adding 1 tablespoon more pectin at the end. I figured there would be a little bit of boil-off, so I added about 1/2 cup more of the runny 50/50 mixture from the fridge. I used the spoon test to figure out when to stop the boiling process and can the jelly.

I decided to work next with the no-sugar added jelly. I took 4 jars and measured their contents (approx 7 cups). I put that into a saucepan and started it boiling. I had 4 spoons in ice water, waiting for testing times.

Test 1: 5 additional minutes boiling, no additional pectin: still runny

Test 2: 5 additional minutes boiling (10 total), no additional pectin: a little less runny, but not enough

Test 3: 4 additional minutes of the pectin mixture, 1 minute additional boiling (11 minutes total): Getting much better, but still I wanted it just a touch thicker.

Test 4: 1 more additional minute boiling (post pectin): Ready to jar.

I had sterilized 4 jars, but only had enough to fill 2 full, and had enough for 1/2 a jar left over. Instead of wasting another jar on that, I just put it in a plastic container int he fridge. We’ll use it soon enough.

I had one problem boiling the full jars: one slipped as I was pulling it out of the hot water bath and it slightly opened and some spilled into the water. After a quick call to my sister to make sure it was ok, I put a new lid on the jar and re-boiled it. I heard that tell tale “popping” sound, so I think this new seal is good.

Tomorrow I will try to fix the 2/3-1/3 low sugar mixture and the other 2 jars of the no-sugar mixture, but first I have to go buy more lids for the jars and probably more pectin. I hate wasting those things, but they are cheap. I wonder if I can throw them in the recycling…

I woke up this morning feeling like I had been run over by a truck. Lately I’ve been doing a lot of running (since I’m training for the Seattle 1/2 Marathon), and before that I was biking a lot (see PastryPowered.com), but I rarely feel like THAT the day after training.

I stayed in PJs until noon. That’s not to say I didn’t *do* anything. Among other things, I scrubbed the jelly from the kitchen floor. Later in the day I went shopping for the other equipment and supplies I needed.

My sister came over and we had dinner, then got started on today’s project.

First we checked which jars from last night solidified. Interestingly enough, the ones with the brown sugar set really well. We had 3 of those jars. 1 jar of the non-brown sugar also set enough that we were satisfied. The rest of the jars (7 of them) were too watery. I poured them out into a tupperware container and put the jars into the dishwasher.

The first batch was made with her juice from last year – 16.5 cups of it to be exact. We brought that to boiling in her stockpot and added 10.5 cups of sugar. Once that was all melted we put in 3/4 cup more sugar and 3 boxes of pectin (slowly so it would all melt), followed by enough butter to fix the foam. Three batches was enough to fill almost 11 of the pint mason jars (which seem to not quite hold a pint).

The second batch was 2/3 green grapes and 1/3 red, “low” sugar recipe. Again we did the triple batch in the stockpot. Again we got almost 11 jars.

At this point we sent D.H. out for more jars, pectin and sugar.

While he was scouring the neighboring grocery stores for low or no sugar pectin, I followed the SurJell directions for mixing up more pectin and water and boiling it for 1 minute, but I used the Fruitjell – because I didn’t want to add any more sugar than I already had. We took 1 cup of the jelly from last night and boiled it with 1 additional tablespoon of the pectin mixture. Then I put that in a small jar I happened to have around.
Finally, we had enough juice for another batch – 2/3 green/1/3 red. My sister went home and I got started on my first solo batch. This time I used Ball FruitJell No Sugar Needed Pectin, but to the specifications on their recipe (4 cups of juice per package). This batch surprised me (at first) by only making almost 6 jars, but then I realized it was juice only and not all that extra sugar adding to bulk.

Now we wait another 24 hours before disturbing the jelly.

Today, I spent from 3pm on doing something with grapes.

I could not have been more pleased with the grapes hanging from the trellis. They were beautiful, plump and dark red. From the ladder, I was able to snip the grape clusters and have them fall right into my hands. I filled 5 large bowls full of them and there are still more on the vines (sorry, I won’t deal with the ones where there are spiders).

The green grapes weren’t as prolific as in years past, but that may be because there is more competition for water on my neighbor’s side of the fence (where the roots are). She also has blueberry bushes, rose bushes and a bunch of apple trees. This year it was pretty dry too.

I cut back the green grape vines like I always do and wound up filling a big 5 gallon bucket full, plus one more large bowl full. I didn’t even harvest off my neighbor’s side either.

My sister showed up (and my husband woke up) right as I was finishing with the picking. She had brought a 12 pack of jars and 5 boxes of pectin. Then we began the cleaning and juicing process. They put the grapes into the non-disposal half of our sink, filled it with water and started cleaning. All the clean grapes went into a collander, from where I snagged them. I pushed the grapes through my Juiceman juicer, getting some amount of juice out one side and “waste” (the skins seeds and more juice) out the other side.
I did a bunch of steps where I pressed additional juice out of the “waste”, filtered whatever juice I had through a strainer, and also used a Oxo gravy separator to get progressively clearer and clearer liquid. My sister said a Chinois Juice Extractor would have helped – she used one last year. I also skimmed off what I could when I boiled the juice.

We made 3 batches because I only had 1 stockpot (for boiling jars) and 1 dutch oven (for doing the jelly). The first batch was more of a teaching batch, just to get the concepts of canning.

• 4 cups red grape juice
• 4 cups white grape juice
• 2 cups water

We boiled that, then let it cool. We measured out 5.5 cups of the juice (which is quite tastey), and brought that back to a boil. Then we added 3.5 cups of sugar, let that all melt and boil, then added 1/4 cup of sugar with the SureJell Pectin for Less or No sugar recipes. Yes. 3.75 cups of sugar is considered Low Sugar. Shocks me. At the last minute she adds a bit of butter to get the jelly to stop foaming – my guess is the fat in the butter breaks down the surface tension on the bubbles.

We put that batch of jelly in the jars and started on another batch of juice. But this one I screwed up a bit – I added double the water. We finished the process and waited 24 hours. That batch never really jelled right.

Another batch we did (with less water), we ran out of white sugar and added 1/2 a cup of brown sugar. I haven’t tasted it yet, but I bet it will add a good flavor.

Now comes the science part: my goal is to test various mixtures of the juice – today’s batch was 50/50 – white and red with “low sugar.” Tomorrow we’ll make another batch that’s 1/3 red and 2/3 white. My sister said last year she, because she had mostly white grapes, she added other berries like blackberries. In fact she brought over 4 quarts of left over grape blackberry juice that we can make into jelly tomorrow.

We have a long list of things to buy for the tomorrow: a metal funnel, more jars, lids and pectin, a 10 lb bag of sugar, and cheese cloth. My sister is also going to bring over her stockpot so we could have 1 stockpot cooking the jelly while the other was available for sterilizing the jars.

I spent the rest of the night cleaning the sticky counters. The floor will have to wait until tomorrow.

There are grapes on my property. More accurately, the grape plants originate on the property of my neighbor to the south. The vines weave through and over the half height metal fence into our yard. It makes for great hiding places for my cats during the summer.
Every year I cut the vines back and every year we get more. The grapes, a couple of green (concord?) plants and one red plant, usually have tart skins and do contain seed, so they aren’t something we go out and gobble up raw.
A few of years ago we built a trellis on our side of the fence (just to the west of the existing plants) with the idea that we could put in a few grape plants of our own (we planted 2, one survived) and if the neighbor’s grapes could make it, they would also grow supported by the trellis. None of the grape vines made it to the top of the 10-12 foot trellis the first year, and they were barely reaching last year (2005), but my sister and I harvested what we could. She spent quite a lot of time making grape juice and jelly out of it, and I was the happy receiptient of the fruit of her labor (haha).

This year she didn’t have time to do the jelly herself. So I decided to do it, if she would teach me how to can. We are planning to do it Sunday evening.