Sous Vide, Loving the Joule

I have not tried it with yogurt yet- better, worse, or the same as the IP?

Different than IP.....I am still getting used to it but today's batch was fabulous. 

I like that I can do a full gallon of milk "my way" which means that I like having the milk in jars through out the whole process. I know people in real life that do a full gallon in the IP insert (no jars) and I thought their texture wasn't as smooth as mine.  

The advantage to the IP is that it controls much of the process so less decisions for me. 

I have made Joule yogurt about 6 times.  4 were great but 2 batches tasted terrific and looked terrific but wouldn't drain thru the Euro cuisine filter and it wasn't because it was too thick to begin with.  The yogurt was totally usable, I just couldn't get it to Greek consistency.  

But, the worst part was that it clogged the euro cuisine and it was almost impossible to clear the filter. Soaking didn't help at all.  Before that happened, I thought the netting of filter was very delicate.  Now that I have scrubbed and scrubbed it (twice) I know that it is much more durable that it appears.  

I have spent more time than I care to admit researching yogurt science on the web.  Yogurt, apparently, is complicated.  I'll spare you my thinking but will tell you how I made today's batch which turned out perfect, perhaps by accident. 

I used moderate heat to bring milk to almost 200 (I got impatient at 198)  I didn't do a water bath to bring it down to incubation temp but that was just to protect the glass jars.  It spent 10 hours with Joule for incubation (I think they say 5 hours is enough) 

The results were terrific AND the euro filters (I have two) were easy to clean.  I had sort of decided that if the filters clogged again I probably would switch back to IP. 

Enjoy!

Thank you! I was wondering if it was smoother. This is worth a try! Just made a gallon today so it will take me a couple of weeks to get through it.

I don't have a Joule, but we do sous vide with a standard pot of water and a thermometer.  What I love is that it can keep a steak at med/rare for hours if we need it to.  I also love the flavor forcing of the vacuum sealing.  My hubs smokes mea.t, and pulled pork and chicken that are sealed warm beautifully in a water bath the same way

just picked up a smoker today off of Craigs list. $20 for a model that runs $200 new, and it is barely used. Find of the year for sure. I need to figure out how to do a killer brisket for my daughter's grad party in May. I have a chef nephew that did one for my son years ago that was utterly insane. it was a sous vide dish, so I will be experimenting a bit with this over the next couple of months. Just picked up a pork butt on sale so I think that will be my first smoke/sous vide combo attempt. I am so clueless with smoking though so I need to go Google for a bit to get started :) 

There are a lot of different DIY sous vide options out there and for sure folks don't have to spend a lot to try it out. I am a sucker for mindless convenience though :0)