Recipes & guides · 5 min read
How to make Bulgarian yogurt at home
A step-by-step guide to thick, tangy Bulgarian yogurt with one sachet and a litre of milk — with or without a yogurt maker.
Bulgarian yogurt is thick, clean-tasting and properly tangy. Making it at home takes ten minutes of work and a night of waiting. You need a litre of whole milk, a pot, a thermometer if you have one, a jar with a lid — and one sachet of yogurt starter.
What you need
- 1 litre of whole cow's milk
- 1 sachet of yogurt starter culture
- a pot and a spoon
- a clean glass jar (or several small ones) with lids
- a thick blanket or towel — or a yogurt maker
Step by step
- Heat the milk. Bring it to the boil and let it cool to 43–45 °C — warm, but you can hold your little finger in it for ten seconds. Pasteurised milk only needs warming to that temperature.
- Add the culture. Tip in one sachet and stir gently for 3–4 minutes.
- Keep it warm for 7–8 hours. Pour into the jar, close it, wrap it in a thick blanket and leave it somewhere warm and still. In a yogurt maker: 8 hours at 42–43 °C.
- Chill. Put the jar in the fridge for 6–7 hours. This is when the texture firms up.
- Enjoy it within a week. Keep it covered in the fridge; it slowly gets tangier.
Why it works
The two bacteria in the culture — Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus — feed on milk sugar and turn it into lactic acid. The acid sets the milk proteins into a gel: that is the thickness and the tang. Too hot (above 50 °C) and the culture dies; too cool and it slows right down. That is all the temperature rules are about.
If something went wrong
Runny yogurt almost always means the milk was too hot when the culture went in, or the jar cooled down too early. Try again with the milk at 43–45 °C and a thicker blanket.
Too sour? Shorten the time to 6 hours and chill it straight away. For more fixes, see the FAQ.
