soy yogurt?

Does anyone have a good recipe for making non-dairy yogurt? Can you make homemade yogurt with soy/almond? I have a dear friend whose little boy has rather nasty tummy trouble when he eats yogurt made with cow milk and I'm hoping to help her out. He's ok with soy and almond. Any suggestions?

Adam

There are good recipes on-line for non-dairy yogurts. I have not tried them. Can I recommend Lassi ? It is a kefir grain culture that has been adapted to non-dairy uses. You can culture fruit juices , honey sweetened water with fresh fruit like berries , etc. There are folks on-line who will sell you the grains and they are immortal I believe.[The kefir , not the people] . We culture raw milk with kefir grain and the grain has lasted for years. I even dropped the cycle for a year - letting the grain sit in an inch of milk in the back of the refridgerator . I put it into fresh milk and it kicked right back into gear. Let's see - Lassi culture and watermelon juice - would that be a Melon-collie drink. Sorry ! Ta-dum. Cymbal crash.

Has she tried goats or shéeps milk?
I have friends who find they only have an alergy gicles milk.
I am a big fan of sheeps milk yogurt

David

Thanks for the suggestions guys! I'll pass those along to my friend. I'm still fairly new to this whole idea of fermentation in general, so I'll look up some recipes. I just got a note that Wild Fermentation is on hold for me at my public library. Maybe there are some recipes therein.

Wayne, I'm from Central Kentucky south of Lexington (just saw you are from Western KY) nice to see a fellow KY permie.

Cashew yoghurt is amazing. The way I do it is to make rejuvelac first - soak a cup of wheatberries overnight (up to 24 hours), then discard the water and recover in water (a quart) and soak for 2 days covered in a cheeseloth or tea towel. After this you shold have a liquid that smells slightly sour/yeasty but not rotten. This is the rejuvelac - a great source of probiotics. You can make another batch by adding the same amount of water to the wheatberries and soak for another 24 hours.
After you have your rejuvelac, blitz with raw cashews at a ratio of 1:1. Leave covered in a cloth overnight in a warm place (8-10 hours, depends on how warm the room is) and you should have a delicious yoghurt that tastes similar to milk yoghurt. You may have to play around with the cashew:rejuvelac ratio.
Hope that helps.
Mike.

You can make non-dairy yogurt in much the same way that you would make regular yogurt. You need the "milk", a live yogurt starter (this can be a yogurt culture pack you buy specifically to start your yogurt or you can purchase pre-made yogurt with live bacteria in it). One more thing that I recommend, but that is not necessary, is a thickening agent (gelatin, agar agar) because non-dairy yogurts tend to be thin. Too much gelatin turns will make it more like Jello though, so if that is not your goal, experiment with smaller amounts first! (My kids actually like their yogurt jiggly, so I put extra gelatin in ours.)

I have actually written in length, with tips and pictures about how to make coconut milk yogurt here: Coconut Milk Yogurt. The exact same process can be used to make soy yogurt. You can also see pics of my favorite way to make yogurt, cooler-filled-with-warm-water-and-left-overnight. By far the easiest way I have made yogurt so far.

I would suggest strongly that if your friend uses coconut milk, that the people who are going to consume the yogurt like the flavor of the coconut milk prior to turning it into yogurt. There is nothing like disliking the flavor of the coconut milk then making it into a more sour version of itself. It is not very pleasant to say the least. I would personally use fresh homemade coconut milk as that has the absolute best flavor by far in my opinion. It just takes much more time investment than if you were to just pop open a can or carton of the stuff from the grocery store. But it has the added benefit of not having stabilizers or preservatives added.

By the way, coconut milk beverage is not the same as coconut milk. It is like the difference between buying a jug of cow's milk and buying a carton of chocolate cow's milk. Coconut milk beverage generally has sugar, stabilizers and sometimes flavorings added, which is why it is labeled "coconut milk beverage" instead of just coconut milk.

Here is a link to some interesting findings by the WAPF on soy in general: WAPF Soy Alert.

I am not surprised that their previous attempts at treating this with yogurt failed.
Most of the yogurt sold in stores has very little actual live pro-biotic.
If it did, you would see them exploding on the shelves as they grow and produce carbon dioxide.


Often people with lactose intolerance find that they tolerate kefir because it will more completely ferment the lactose.
I have also come across a lot of people who tolerate the kefir better if they make it with raw milk.
I would buy live grains that will reproduce indefinitely rather than packaged/dried ones that don't have nearly as many strains of bacteria and only can be used a limited number of times.

I got mine from some nice ladies in Texas at http://www.kefirgrains4u.blogspot.com/p/hpw-to-order-kefir-grains.html
They have water kefir as well, which if made correctly would probably be a big hit with kids.

However, it is also quite easy to search youtube for instructional videos on making your own vegetable and fruit ferments.
That would completely side-step any dairy issues.

Soy can be fermented, but since most soy sold in the USA is gmo--I tend to stay away.
Plus there are some pesky studies that suggest it lowers testosterone and IQ--so I don't go looking for more reasons to eat soy products.

Excellent suggestions folks. Thanks for responding! I've suggested the kefir to my friends, and they've tried the homemade yoghurt route recently with much better success than with store bought. I'll pass along all of these ideas. Again, thanks for the sharing and willingness to help.

Hi Adam,

For a sensitive stomach I would suggest a yogurt recipe developed by Elaine Gottschall in her book Braking the Vicious Cycle.  They found that fermenting at 100-110 deg F for 24 hours produces a virtually lactose-free yogurt.  This is because the longer a starter sits with milk, for more it brakes down lactose.  So at 24 hours the lactose is broken down into its components of glucose and galactose.  In other words, the digestion of lactose has been done for you!  This long of a culture time also starts to brake down some milk proteins which means overall east of digestion for this yogurt.  

Another consideration is that some folks don't handle the milk protein called casein.  In that case you can try goat milk instead of cows milk.  If that stilll doesn't work then try non-dairy milks but I'd say away from store bought soy or almond milk.  Most have additives that interfere with the fermentation process.