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Post by mountaingoat on Mar 21, 2016 16:45:11 GMT -8
I dehydrate all of my bping food - have been doing it for years. I do have a question about dehydrated yogurt, though. I've dried it many times and crunched it up with homemade fruit leather for a trail snack. However, I've never been able to determine if yogurt still maintains all of its beneficial probiotics when dried, kind of like yeast or sourdough going dormant. And would they then be reactivated by ingestion, or would they need to be rehydrated first, or do they simply die and leave yogurt without all the health benefits? Anybody out there know?
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sarbar
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Post by sarbar on Mar 21, 2016 22:12:45 GMT -8
I'd be wary with the heat involved. Have you ever tried the toddler yogurt drops? Look in the baby aisle - they are freeze dried so retain it They even come back to yogurt with water added.
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rebeccad
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Post by rebeccad on Apr 2, 2016 12:38:25 GMT -8
Have you ever tried the toddler yogurt drops? The only hitch with those is that they are pretty high in sugar, IIRC.
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sarbar
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Post by sarbar on Apr 4, 2016 18:39:22 GMT -8
The organic ones are a bit better
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Post by Lamebeaver on Apr 18, 2016 11:56:36 GMT -8
Most commercial yogurt is pasteurized, which also kills most of the probiotics.
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Post by wgiles on Apr 24, 2016 5:41:31 GMT -8
I have purchased dehydrated yogurt in the past, but hadn't tried to dehydrate it myself until recently. I ran several batches through my dehydrator at 115 F and noticed a few things. Plain nonfat Greek yogurt works best. It dries well and has the best yield, not surprising since it has more solids. Plain yogurt does OK. Vanilla flavored yogurt does not do well. It never completely dries out and doesn't grind well. Aside from all the sugar, it's just not a good choice. I don't worry too much about the probiotics surviving, because I store the dried yogurt in the freezer and prolonged freezing will kill them as well.
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rebeccad
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Post by rebeccad on Apr 24, 2016 11:50:59 GMT -8
wgiles--do you just spread the yogurt on the tray? And it dries to something you can powder? I have to experiment more.
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Post by wgiles on Apr 26, 2016 13:10:31 GMT -8
With the Plain Greek Yogurt, I just spread it out on the nonstick sheets and dried it for around 24 hours. It did dry to a powderable material. The vanilla yogurt that I tried did not. It was too like plastic. I grind my powders in a Mr Coffee grinder. It seems to do a better job than food processors or blenders. The blenders appear to make good purees of wet chile peppers, but don't make good powders of dry chiles.
I find that one quart of Plain Greek Yogurt will need two 15" square trays to dry. I tend to dry everything for 24 hours simply because it's easier for me to check on it a day later.
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grace
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Post by grace on May 6, 2016 13:58:45 GMT -8
I tend to dry everything for 24 hours simply because it's easier for me to check on it a day later. Veggies, chili and everything? I'm asking bc some days I want to throw things in the dehydrator, but I worry that I'll be gone too long when they need checking on.
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rebeccad
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Post by rebeccad on May 7, 2016 7:22:20 GMT -8
I worry that I'll be gone too long when they need checking on. I've never found that it hurt to over-dry things. I do the same--except usually dry overnight, which is plenty for most things, and as I say, doesn't hurt the things that were done at 2 a.m. I'm going to try the yogurt. That would be a huge addition to our breakfasts, which need protein.
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Post by wgiles on May 14, 2016 6:03:41 GMT -8
I can set my timer for anything up to 30 hours, so I usually do. That way the dehydrator will still be even if I forget to check when I intended to. I am normally drying for preservation, not for flavor or texture. As long as the food rehydrates well, I don't worry about overdrying. Once dry, I usually put the food in the freezer. Keeping it cold tends to slow down deterioration and I can dry food well ahead of time. As I noted earlier, prolonged freezing also kills bacteria. This may not be an approved USDA method, but it does work.
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rebeccad
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Post by rebeccad on May 17, 2016 8:45:58 GMT -8
Okay, I did an experiment with non-fat Greek yogurt. It dried well, but I couldn't get it to really turn into a powder (though I didn't use the coffee grinder, being too lazy to clean it that thoroughly. I'll try that next). The little chunks (very small, but not powder) just didn't reconstitute in a smooth fashion, so that a) even adding about half the water to return to pre-drying quantities it was runny, and b) it had a grainy or lumpy texture.
I'll give one more try to grind to true powder.
I also added some freeze-dried blueberries when rehydrating, and found them surprisingly flavorless when reconstituted. I want to add something to the plain yogurt, but that won't be it. Maybe strawberries or raspberries.
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Post by wgiles on May 17, 2016 16:13:56 GMT -8
I have several of the cheap coffee grinders and they are dedicated to grinding certain things. One is dedicated to very spicy things like black pepper and chiles, one is dedicated to cereal grains and another to coffee. They don't clean very well and I don't want to cross-contaminate things. I haven't tried to powder any of the yogurt that I dried, yet. I have been using some older commercially dried yogurt in hot cereal and have had problems with lumps not rehydrating. The taste of these lumps is not pleasant. All that I'm really trying to do is use up the old powdered yogurt, so I haven't tried to compare the tastes. I don't try to reconstitute it to yogurt, but use the powder as an addition to meals, mostly hot cereal. I usually add about a tablespoon of yogurt powder to one serving of cereal. I've never really been able to handle the flavor of plain yogurt without sweeteners, but don't want to use sugar laden sweetened yogurt. I normally use stevia extract to sweeten mine, but don't see any harm in using some sugar when it's for back country food.
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rebeccad
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Post by rebeccad on May 18, 2016 8:46:11 GMT -8
on't want to use sugar laden sweetened yogurt. I normally use stevia extract to sweeten mine, but don't see any harm in using some sugar when it's for back country food. Exactly. I'd add sweetener to the finished product. At home, I usually put fruit or jam into my plain yogurt. Adding the powder to the oatmeal would be a possibility. I dried some more, and am going to try the coffee grinder this morning. A lot matters how thinly spread the yogurt was on the tray. Where it was very thin, it dries to a white flake that powders easily. But other parts are hard yellowish chunks. Those are the parts that don't powder and didn't reconstitute.
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grace
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Post by grace on May 18, 2016 8:52:22 GMT -8
I dried some more, and am going to try the coffee grinder this morning. A lot matters how thinly spread the yogurt was on the tray. Where it was very thin, it dries to a white flake that powders easily. But other parts are hard yellowish chunks. Those are the parts that don't powder and didn't reconstitute. Let us know how it goes! I have some yogurt in the fridge, ready to go this weekend.
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