Question about using storebought yogurt as starter

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Question about using storebought yogurt as starter

Postby Northern-Mom on Tue Oct 06, 2015 7:47 pm

Many people on the internet have said that storebought yogurt as a starter doesn't maintain more than a couple generations. An heirloom type starter is much better for this. I have a yogurt maker so I am interested in knowing about thermophilic cultures. Anyone here ever been able to maintain generations of their yogurt culture with storebought yogurt?
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Re: Question about using storebought yogurt as starter

Postby Gutted on Fri Nov 20, 2015 11:26 am

It's a myth propagated by the culture providers so that they can keep selling cultures and maintain their market. Bacteria reproduce, it's what they do, if they suddenly died or became weak then all bacteria would perish which does not happen.....They thrive when given what they require, suitable conditions ie food and an appropriate temperature for the particular bacteria.

What can happen is that they can evolve and adapt to their circumstances and they can become affected by bacteriophages which are viruses which target bacteria which can change them. This is a big concern amongst food manufactures.

For these reasons, it might be beneficial to begin afresh after a certain amount of cycles to ensure that what you are culturing is what you intend to culture and not some mutant.

I tend to go to about 10 generations before restarting. That can be about 20 weeks or so. Not really a big investment. Be aware that using store yoghurt will be much weaker than your own cultured yoghurt and so will take quite a lot longer to reach finished. However once you have done your own to full strength, it should culture much quicker for all further generations from that source.

Therefore do not worry about it, just set a limit and get it somewhere close.

Long ago I used to use supermarket yoghurt in my early days of yoghurt making buy stopped because I wanted to be certain of the bacteria and strain used in my yoghurt. I now tend to use probiotic capsules as starters but they take a very long time in comparison with my yoghurt to reach a finished fully set state. A capsule will take about 16 hours whereas a previous batch of my yoghurt can complete in around 4 hours but that has recently increased to more like 6 hours as my yoghurt maker temperature has lowered by about 3-4C.
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Re: Question about using storebought yogurt as starter

Postby yogurtluv on Tue May 17, 2016 12:07 am

The yogurt manufacturer puts preservatives and additives AFTER the yogurt has cultured making the culture very weak and as Gutted stated the yogurt bacteria adapts so when making yogurt from store bought yogurt it's no surprise that it doesn't come out exactly the same as what was in the container. Because of this I think every time you make your batch it adapts making it a little different each time from the previous batch. I had no problems making batch after batch from store bought yogurt when I was making heated yogurt but then again each company is different (I'm sure the amount of preservatives and additives are also different) so if your store bought yogurt doesn't last you may want to try changing the brand or yogurt line?
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Re: Question about using storebought yogurt as starter

Postby carfreefamily on Thu May 26, 2016 9:38 am

I was about to start a thread on how long people have been able to keep a commercial culture going. The Art of Fermentation makes it sound like most of the time it will only be consistent a few generations.

I have yogurt I started from a batch of Trader Joe's European Style yogurt that I have had going for about a year, making a new batch once a week or so. It has been consistently good. Sometimes creamier than others, but it has never devolved into something I didn't want to eat. Most of the time it's spot on.

I'm wondering if some brands are better than others in terms of getting a sustainable culture started. I also wonder if more biodiversity in the culture evolves as the culture is chained along.

I do want to obtain an heirloom culture at some point, but it doesn't seem necessary. Start with a commercial culture. The worst that can happen is you have to start over at some point.
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Re: Question about using storebought yogurt as starter

Postby Gutted on Sat Jun 04, 2016 8:01 pm

As I stated, commercial yoghurt manufacturers have to be very careful about their starter cultures to be sure that they are safe and not affected by phages which could potentially have health consequences.

Therefore using commercial yoghurt as a starter should be okay except for being slow to culture due to lower amounts of active bacteria.

Additives won't last more than a generation and bacteria will not change unless is becomes contaminated by other bacteria or phages which should not really be a great concern.
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