Refrigerate probiotic

I tried Physician's Choice Probiotics 60 Billion and I am blown away by the results! These probiotics are incredibly potent with 60 billion CFUs per serving, making them one of the strongest formulas on the market. I have noticed a significant improvement in my digestion and overall gut health since incorporating these probiotics into my daily routine.
What sets Physician's Choice Probiotics apart from other brands is that they are shelf-stable, meaning they do not require refrigeration. This makes them convenient for travel and ensures the potency of the probiotics remains intact. I also love that they are vegan, non-GMO, and free from any artificial ingredients.
I highly recommend Physician's Choice Probiotics 60 Billion to anyone looking to improve their gut health and overall well-being. With its potent formula and high-quality ingredients, it is definitely worth trying. Plus, with a 100% money-back guarantee, you have nothing to lose!
https://amzn.to/4aveG1z

33 year old white female, unemployed, unsure of any similar medical history in the family. This will be machine translated from Polish because I dont want to write it from scratch again.
Since childhood, I have never had problems with my immune system. I got sick once, maybe twice a year. Suddenly something changed a year ago, when I was working in an open office with about 15 people. Once a month at least something happened, and it was serious, not one-two day sniffles, but it normally took me out for the entire week. The doctor prescribed me the Broncho-vaxxom oral vaccine, I took 3 doses, the last one in December, it did absolutely nothing.
Now since February 20,something happens all the time. There was even a time when I was sick on March 10-12, then seemingly a few days were ok, and on the 17th I was sick again, and it was for probably 8 days. During those periods when I'm not sick I often have fierce headaches, for which no ibuprofen etc. helps, it just has to pass on its own. The pain is concentrated mostly in the back of the head (above the neck), above the eyes, and often the eyes themselves hurt (recently I thought they were going to explode from the pain).
My troubles always start with the throat. The throat hurts, then the muscles, the head. Fever rarely occurs, the highest fever I had was 37.5 C. Mostly this worse condition starts when I get winded or drink a cold soda. Once I got infected from my therapist at group therapy.
Since I was a kid I've been eating a lot of garlic, onions, drinking lemon teas. I take magnesium, D3, rutoside, strong vitamins B, recently a probiotic (I also took that before). I don't eat healthy, but not tragically either: I eat vegetables and fruits, nuts, chia seeds, etc. I have never had COVID. My last family doctor suggested that I might be iron deficient, nothing like that came up in blood tests. My blood tests are always good, only my cholesterol is elevated.
On Friday I went to the ENT specialist, he said he sees nothing except that I have dry mucous membranes - drink more fluids, use a humidifier in the room, etc. After the appointment, I drank one small can of soda, not even from the refrigerator, and so it began.... A few hours later a sore throat, headache, muscle pain, lying under a blanket.
Today is Monday, and all night and half of Sunday again this nightmarish headache above the neck. My throat hurts despite the fact that I made a mouthwash of chamomile and sage, the humidifier also ran half a day yesterday. I have taken several paracetamol since Friday, it helps for a while, and then the pain comes back with double the force.
I want to go see an immunologist but cant get an appointment

Creating a dog-friendly meal involves selecting ingredients that are safe and nutritious for your furry friend. Here's a simple recipe for a dog-friendly meal:
Ingredients:

• 1 cup cooked chicken or turkey (diced or shredded)
• 1/2 cup cooked brown rice or quinoa
• 1/2 cup cooked vegetables (such as carrots, green beans, or peas)
• 1 tablespoon plain yogurt (optional, for added probiotics)
• 1 tablespoon chopped parsley (optional, for fresh breath)
• Water or low-sodium broth for cooking

Instructions:

1. Cook the chicken or turkey thoroughly, ensuring there are no bones or seasonings added.
2. Cook the brown rice, quinoa or white rice according to package instructions. Make sure it's fully cooked and easy for your dog to digest.
3. Cook or steam the vegetables until they're soft. Avoid using onions, garlic, or any toxic vegetables for dogs.
4. Once everything is cooked, mix the chicken or turkey, brown rice or quinoa, and vegetables in a bowl.
5. Add a tablespoon of plain yoghurt for added probiotics, if desired.
6. Sprinkle chopped parsley on top for fresh breath, if desired.
7. Let the mixture cool before serving it to your dog. You can store leftovers in the refrigerator for a few days or freeze them for longer storage.

Are this okay to take ?

Hi guys,
I need advice from all of you. I'm 11 days post vanco and it seems I might have post IBS. I'm not sure. I have one BM per day and it's formed but kinda loose. The stool has fluffies on the sides. Do you think the c-diff is creeping back? I was on a 6 week vanco taper. I'm trying everything I can to improve my gut microbiome. I take a live probiotic, drink plain Kefir, take Floraster on and off (I can't tell if it bothers my stomach), eat live probiotics like refrigerated sauerkraut from Whole Foods. I eat very plainly - rice, chicken, salmon, eggs, plain yogurt. I'm going to try Kombucha today. I tried eating more fruit in the past few days, like banana, raspberries, mandarin orange, and had a few sips of coffee because I heard there's good compounds in coffee. It seems since the fruit and coffee sips my stool has become looser. I also had more gas and some stomach cramps (I think from the gas). Again, I'm not sure if it's the c-diff coming back slowly or just PI-IBS. My GI doc said let him know if I have diharrea 3 or more times per day and then we'll talk. We all know c-diff doesn't work or present the same for everyone. My stool also never went back to "normal." It's always been kinda oddly shaped even though it's formed but on the looser side. And still has that yellow-orange color when I wipe. It's not brown like it used to be. I'm wondering when my stool will be brown again and normal? For those of you with PI-IBS how long did it last? Did you have loose stools? What do I eat? I have Pure IgG which is an immunoglobulin powder. Should I try that? My 5 year old son is 6 days post vanco (5 week taper) and is doing just fine. His stool is back to brown color. For reference, I'm a 46 yr old female. Thanks in advance.

LO and I have had thrush for over a month and idk what else to do. I’m EBF. I’m doing the following - sanitizing pacifiers after every use - using nystatin during diaper changes 3x a day and then using homemade apno on the other diaper changes with desitin - using apple cider vinegar mixed with water to wipe off nipples after every feed - washing bath towels after every use - using homemade apno cream on nipple then wiping off before feed with coconut oil - taking ibuprofen to help with inflammation - was on flucanozole for 14 days. The thrush went away almost completely but then came back while I was on flucanozole. Not sure if I should ask for more or a different medicine - cut sugar and white carbs from diet - not wearing a bra for 90% of the time - taking a refrigerated probiotic and drinking kefir in the morning
I’m at my wits end as I can’t get rid of this thing. Am I missing something that would help / is there anything I should be asking the drs for? Currently LO is not on anything for oral. He does have a white-ish tongue but Dr said it was milk (not sure if I should push for oral anyways). Nipple are super itchy and LO has the diaper rash / white bumps on bottom. I don’t have a history with yeast infections but I was on a few heavy duty antibiotics after delivery. Would appreciate any help!

There are so many GD probiotic brands out there claiming they are the best, it's always been frustrating for me to figure out which strain is adequate for what my body needs to become more balanced. Between internet research and inquiring with local health food stores, this is what I came up with. Here is the research I've gathered in short, along with the most trusted brands that are worth the money. I'm still a firm believer in a glass bottle, and have loosened my standards when it comes to refrigeration...
Brands:
-1MD Nutrition
-Live Conscious
-Seed
-Stonehenge
-RenewLife
Lactobacillus Gasseri
-healthy weight support
-bone density
​
Lactobacillus rhamnosus:
-diarrhea
-vaginal yeast
-mood & anxiety
​
Lactobacillus reuteri:
-leaky gut (bloating / gas / cramps / food sensitivity)
-UTI
-dental health
-h pylori defense (digestive disease)
​
Lactobacillus acidophilus:
-dairy defense
-mineral absorption
-vaginal health
​
Bifidobacterium bifidum
-constipation
-allergy relief
​
Bifidobacterium longum
-gluten defense
-liver health
-immune system
​
Below is a code for seed if you'd like to use that for 50% off a month subscription which is more than any influencer can grant you with their codes, I'd appreciate the code usage. Stay balanced with the bacteria y'all.
​
https://refer.seed.com/x/S9BTHe

Hey guys I have some nature's bounty probiotics that will expire before I finish it. Will putting them in the fridge help?

I’ve been chronically bloated for almost 2 months after a heavy antibiotic course.
I want to share what has helped me so far:
Colon cleanse Oxy powder from Global Healing. I feel a pound light after taking this. Pls try this before taking pharmaceuticals. I looked 4 months pregnant everyday and I’m elated that this has helped me just within a day. I took 2 capsules to start.
I will keep you all posted, tonight I will do day 2 of cleanse. Also refrigerated probiotics with multiple strains is beneficial.

Anybody have any idea what could have caused this? fyi this is a plastic bottle and many other plastics in my house have been bitten/chewed up like this, like bottle caps

Yesterday I purchased the stack but on the subscription I dropped the Nutty Pudding and Berry Mix saving $135.
In a blender I chop the nuts, flax, chia and cinnamon DRY, then I add Kiefer rather than nut milk, for the probiotics, then stir. If you try to chop and mix wet the Chia becomes too thick and the blender starts to smoke. Yikes! I make 4 meals at a time, refrigerate, scoop out several tbsps and eat with berries.
I am a little confused about when to eat NP. Yesterday after the morning workout and SV, I rode my bike then ate the NP around 3pm as my last meal with coffee, which I blame for only getting 6 hrs restless sleep from 8:30-4:30.
Do you think 20 peanuts in the shell is a good substitute for 60g pea protein (same calories)?

Introduction: Watch Out! A Lot Of Detail Ahead
Engineers are often described as being anal retentive, or pay too much attention to details. However, I have a highly evolved yogurt making system and process that generates consistent results for large quantities of yogurt with good texture, even with low milkfat.
The following post is not original, as it started off as some notes for my sister-in-law.
If you are the type that is detailed oriented, I thought I would share my process and equipment for making yogurt. I'll warn you upfront, if you don't like a lot of detail, you should stop reading now.
However, if you ever said, "I make a lot of yogurt, and I really want it be consistent," I hope you'll find some interesting stuff in this post that will answer some questions about making yogurt.
Basically, think as the following as having a blackbelt in home yogurt making.
Who am I:
A geeky engineer that has been making yogurt for 40 years, and probably has made every mistake in the book.
Other than being an engineer, I would say that I have a decent grasp of yogurt making science because I read "Manufacturing of Yogurt and Fermented Milk," compiled and edited by Chandan about 10 years ago. If you are a science nerd, this is the book that pulls it all together, and it will really give you an idea of the science behind yogurt making. Unfortunately, the text book is expensive, but if you want to know the "why" of yogurt making, this is the one stop shop for knowledge.
In the following post, I am going to throw in a little science and research, so we'll meander a bit, but I hope it will be helpful.
What am I trying to do:
I am going to lay out a yogurt system that will allow you to make a lot of yogurt all at once, up to 192 oz (or six quarts) at a time. If you are just one person yogurt for yourself, this is probably overkill. I'll make some comments about a more limited scale system at the end of this post if you want a smaller amount of capability.
Do you need to make life so complicated?
No. As long as you are willing to make whole milk yogurt, maybe with some dried milk thrown in, you'll make perfectly acceptable yogurt without carefully watching the details. However, if you want consistent yogurt with plain milk at the 1% or lower level with no other added ingredients, the following system should help you get a better yogurt. Or perhaps you want to take your normal yogurt to the best you can make it, I hope you will also gain some insight by this post.
Practice Of Making Yogurt
Now to the practical stuff.
Let's talk about the theory of making yogurt at 10,000 feet.
To make yogurt, you will need to do the following:

1. Get milk. Generally, I've regularly make non-fat, but 1% is easier.
2. Heat milk. This is for sanitizing and denaturing
3. Cool milk. Bring it to roughly 110F or 43C.
4. Inoculate. There are two strains required for standard yogurt
5. Allow growth. Details below
6. Slow growth. Cool to slow growth, put in refrigerator

Where Life Goes Wrong At 10,000
If you make less than optimum yogurt at 10,000 feet, what happens?
Denaturing is really important and even more with low milkfat products. The best heating and cooling process sets up the milk proteins so that they are denatured to between 80-85%. The correct denaturing process creates the best possible texture, but it also allows your bacteria to grow really well. So, it it a double bonus. This is completely in your control.
However, denaturing depends on the milk your get. Raw milk is not denatured at all. Pasteurized milk is denatured to about 10%. Ultrapasteurized milk is denatured to 70%. The process below assumes normal store bought pasteurized milk. If you use the other types, you'll need to experiment.
The culture is a bit more tricky. Generally, you have less control over the culture, and you'll have to experiment to get the best result. I'll go into detail of why this is, but unfortunately, you'll need to experiment to get a consistent culture.
I have never found much of a difference of milk other than the level of milk fat in the milk product.
I've never used ultra-pasteurized, and I would not suggest the following if you use this milk. This milk is already denatured to about 70%, which is 10-15% under the target range. I don't know how to add the extra amount to get the desired percentage. However, you may find 70% helps your texture and is acceptable for your yogurt, and this is all you need for your yogurt.
Batch size and length of storage:
Yogurt is a big part of my families life. A daily yogurt smoothie is our normal post workout drink. So, 192 oz lasts us about a week. So, our goal was to make at least six quarts of yogurt.
You still may want to make a big batch and keep it for weeks. So, we need to think about how long will the yogurt "last" in your refrigerator. It turns out that this is depends on how you look at the yogurt.
To answer this, we need to think about why are you eating yogurt? You enjoy the taste. You want to limit lactose in your diet. You want the probiotics.
Let's start off with lactose. There is a misconception that yogurt makes milk lactose free. We can go into the chemistry, but I'll short cut it and tell you that generally about 1/3 of the lactose is broken down in the normal yogurt process. Things like this is covered in the textbook I mentioned earlier.
We all know that yogurt last a long time. The reason why is that the bacteria turns the yogurt into an acidic substance. Generally the more acidic something is, the long it can resist pathogens that are harmful to the human body. The FDA says that commercial yogurt must be at a pH of 4.6 or lower. This isn't hard to get to with normal yogurt, but I've been experimenting with some tricky yogurts, and I've recently introduce pH paper into my yogurt making. This is really cool to me, and we'll make sure to put this into our process. With a low pH yogurt, you should be able to get around 3 weeks or better of refrigerator storage.
So in some sense, you want a very tart yogurt to make it last longer. However, it turns out that if you want the maximum amount of viable living bacteria, you most likely don't want it as tart (low pH) as possible.
Here is a table that I extracted from this research.

Incubation time	Average LAB (109 CFU/mL).	PH
18 h	3.43	4.29
24 h	5.83	4.17
30 h	8.45	4.10
36 h	9.55	4.08
42 h	8.95	4.03

The second column shows the bacterial density and the third column shows the pH. As the yogurt got very sour, the bacterial density started to reverse as the yogurt saw bacterial die off. However, the die off is slow, so I would say that we want to get the pH close to 4, but probably not too much under 4.
Now, you may say "why does this table also show long incubation times?" We'll cover this later, or you can read the paper now if curious. Regardless, I think that if you make your yogurt to about a pH of 4, you should be able to keep it in the refrigerator for 3 weeks, and still have good bacterial activity.
Okay, Enough Of The background, Let's Get To The Equipment
Considering all of the above, I've centered the system is good for making 64 oz to 192 oz at a batch.
It turns out that 64 oz pickling jars are the perfect containers for storing the yogurt. They store wonderfully, and sanitize easily. So this is going to be the basis for our yogurt equipment.
So, what you need is the following:

1. Some 64 oz pickling jars. For those in the USA, go to Amazon and search on "1/2 Gallon Glass Wide-Mouth Fermentation/Canning Jar with 110mm White Plastic Lid." The cost of each jar should be under $9 per jar.
   
2. Buy a sous vide wand. I have two: an Anova and a no name clone that sells with coupon for around $50 off of Amazon. The $50 one works just great. You don't need to be too picky, just buy one with good reviews. (Update: As you will see in the next section, while any wand will work, the more narrow the wand is, the more it will stand straight up and down if you have 3 jars working at one time. So, if you have a choice, a more narrow wand is better, but not required.)
   
3. Buy the appropriately sized LIPAVI sous vide container and lid. Since I also make regular yogurt up to 3 jars at a time, I selected the 19 model. You will need to buy both the base and the lid. This should be somewhere around $70 for both pieces. (Update: The 19 model hold 18 quarts of water. The box itself will squeeze in 3 of your jars, and doesn't leave a lot of room for your sous vide wand. To make the wand fit with 3 jars, you will need to tilt it a bit. I don't think this is a problem, but it does look weird. Because the jars touch, you will need to make sure that the water goes over the shoulder of the jars so you don't get hotspots, and you will need to make sure you have a lid on the whole thing to also equalize temperatures. I tested this with a water system, and all the jars were within 1 degree of each other, with the jar in the corner being one degree cooler. My Anova Nano is thicker than my no name sous vide wand, which makes more of a tilt when you put it in.)
   
4. Buy the ThermoPro TP510 for approximately $25
   
5. Buy two Winco Inset Pan, 7.0-Quart, Medium, stainless steel. Also buy one Winco Inset Cover, 7.0-Quart for the lid. This is your double boiler.
   
6. (I'm going to divert for a second on "why a double boiler?" Using a double boiler just eliminates a lot of problems that comes in the denaturing process, and has been a secret of yogurt makers for many years. If you put a plain pot on the stove, and turn it down to simmer, you will find that the milk creates a crust on the bottom of the pan. This is because the interface of the pan is too high. Part of your milk in your yogurt will have the chemistry broken down beyond what we want. In commercial yogurt operations, they don't need to do double boiling because they have equipment that precisely holds the temps. For the home yogurt maker, double boiling is our best option.)
   
7. Buy some type of a handheld mixer. I exclusively use a discontinued Hamilton Beach mixture that has a blending disk that is perfect for yogurt. However, this is no longer available. However, the culture will need to be mixed in, and this should be done vigorously. You want something that can be sanitized, so evaluate on this basis.
   
8. Buy pH paper. Search for and buy 3110M18EA 325 Hydrion Short Range pH Test Paper Dispenser, 3.0-5.5 pH.
   

This will give you an exceptional at home system for right around $200 that features stainless steel interfaces, precision temperature monitoring, and the ability growth in glass medium. You can try and use insta-pots or other methods and be fine, but this will be a serious step up in capabilities to control. It will even allow you to make some very difficult types of yogurts like 1% milkfat Reuteri with good results.
Have all the Equipment?
I'm now going to assume that you decided that you wanted to invest in this system. You went to Amazon, and you have all this "stuff" sitting in front of you. What do you do next?
One Time Prep The Sous Vide System:
The heart of the culturing is your sous vide system. I've made yogurt for many years without this, but I recently upgraded, and the control is very amazing. Sous vide gives you perfect control over the culturing temp regardless of the other environmental issues.
However, you do need to have the water cover the jars to the perfect height to get the perfect temp. The goal is to have enough water so that it covers the yogurt jars up over the shoulder of the jar, just a little under the threads where the jar lid goes on. This is a little tricky because when you put in the jars, the water level will go up. So, you need enough water initially to get to the right level once the jars are in.
So let's premark your container. You'll only need to do this once, and you'll want to do it before making your first batch.
So, you want to do the following before making the yogurt, assuming you are using the 19 quart model as mentioned above and want to make up to 3 jars at a time:

1. Fill up fill 3 pickle jars with water up to the bottom threads.
   
2. Place all three into your container, and fill the container with water until the water is just over the shoulder of the jars, but not up to the threads.
   
3. Remove all three jars, and mark the side of the container with a Sharpy and write 3 on it. This is the line for water fill that you need if you are making three jars of yogurt
   
4. Place two jars into the container and do the same. Make a new mark for water for 2 jar amount.
   
5. Do the same for 1 jar.
   

Now, you have a premarked container that you know "how high to fill it" without jars. When you put in the jars, you will have the perfect height.
The second thing I would do is double check your sous vide wand for accuracy. Take the thermometer that you just bought, and fill the contain with water and allow the wand to bring it to 99 degrees. Then double check it with your thermometer. My cheap sous vide is exactly 2 degree off.
If you have concern that your thermometer is wrong, boil a pot of water. As long as you are at sea level, you should see a temp of 100C or 212F ensuring your thermometer is working right.
Yogurt Day
Preprep: I would suggest you start by filling your sous vide container with water to whatever line you need. If making 1 jar, then 1 container. If making 2, then two. As stated, you can make up to three. Then set the temperature to the target temp so you are ready to put in your jars.
Now, how "clean" do your instruments need to be? Plenty of people make yogurt almost without giving any thought about this. If you don't store your yogurt for very long, it is not an issue. If you want to store your yogurt longer, a little more work will help make your yogurt last longer in the refrigerator.
We often hear about sterilization but this requires an autoclave, but what we want is sanitization levels. Most dishwasher will sanitize glassware, so you want to wash the pickle jars before using, then make sure they stay covered. You will also want to figure out how to sanitize your mixer before using. You may pour boiling water over the mixer, put the mixing blade into the dishwasher, or even just spray it with rubbing alcohol, and let it dry.
This process will sanitize things other than the pickle jars and mixer, so you don't need to be quite as concerns about this.
Now for the milk:

1. Fill one of the Winco pans with about 1" of water. Then place the other pan into this pan to serve as the top of the double boiler. Turn on the heat to get the system going.
   
2. Now pour one to three jars worth of milk into the top pan of your double boiler.
   
3. Place the TP510 thermometer onto the side of the pan. Make sure to tilt flat the holder so that it slides over the edge. You will not be able to get it on by just trying to slide it down.
   
4. The opening in the Winco lid provides an opening for the thermometer to allow you to cover the milk while monitoring the temperature. To get an accurate temperature reading, you will need to stir the milk. I temporarily removed the thermometer, and use it to stir the milk. Or you could use something like a stainless steel wand or glass wand. You may want to stay away from wood.
   
5. If you ever buy the Chandan textbook, it gives a variety of temperatures and hold times to get to our targeted 80-85% denaturing process. Based on this research, I've developed the following: I have my stove on full blast until the milk gets to 204F. While you may already know this, you'll need to stir the milk every once in a while to get a good temperature. I then turn the gas off, and the milk temperature will start to fall a little, but not much over the next 5 minutes. Then remove the milk container and place into a water bath to bring down the temperature quickly. We need to do this to ensure that we don't over denature the milk. Leave the thermometer in to see the temperature decline, and you will need to stir the milk with a sanitized instrument to get the right temp.
   
6. You want to remove the inner Winco pan, and place this into a water bath to cool it down. Don't put the lower pan into the water bath because two pans don't cool down quickly. What is a "water bath"? I plug the kitchen sink, and I fill it with cold water. You could also have another pan that you fill with cold water. In my early years, I would place the inner pan on ice cubes, but water turned out to be a lot better and a lot less problems. The reason that you want to cool it down quickly is to stop the denaturing process, which really kicks in at around 180 degrees. I have tried to cool with an air fan to save water, but I could never figure out the appropriate process. The water method works.
   
7. You want to keep the lid on as much as possible to prevent any unwanted mold, yeast or bacteria to be introduced (as the temperature gets closer to 110F).
   
8. Once the milk hits 110 degrees, put in your starter yogurt. What is your starter yogurt? Well this is complicated and has it's own section below. However, having a lot is not better. To make the best possible texture, it turns out that you want a lower amount that grows a little longer. Unfortunately, you'll need to experiment based on your starter, but generally, I would start with 1 tablespoon per quart of milk as a starting point. Then as you gain more experience, you'll find that reducing the amount of starter, and having a slightly longer ferment time generally results in a better texture. (Edit: I added a comment to this thead to specifically address starter amount.)
   
9. A lot of people suggest that you place the starter into a small cup to preblend it before you pour it into the main mix. I have never done this, but I do blend it well. I think this is your personal choice. I current blend for about 1-2 minutes. I have some concerns that over blending the milk mix will introduce pathogens from the air.
   
10. Pour your milk from the Winco pan into your yogurt jars. A gallon should exactly fill two jars, but sometimes the blending may make some foam and you'll have a little extra to throw away.
    
11. Place the lids on the jars. If you are making normal yogurt with normal cultures, they are Streptococcus thermophilus and Lactobacillus delbrueckii bulgaricus, which are homofermentative, which means they won't produce CO2 like some bacteria, and sealing the lids keep pathogens out of your yogurt.
    
12. Place these jars into your sous vide system and set timer for 4.5 hours.
    
13. The bacteria will multiply eating the lactose. In this process, they create whey, but this whey are trapped inside of a casein network. It is the casein network that gives yogurt that great texture. However, if you continue to the culture time too much, the pH will get so low that the casein network breaks down and you'll get curds and whey. So, if you start to see whey on top of the yogurt, you want to stop culturing.
    
14. This is where technique needs to be developed. There are three stages: The yogurt hasn't set yet. The yogurt is at a perfect set. The yogurt is starting to create whey. Look for all three of these stages, and you'll be able to develop when to pull it out. Basically, wiggle the jar a little (too much will cause your yogurt to break the casein network!), and see if it is getting solid. If it is starting to get firm, with a little whey, you probably went a tiny bit too far.
    
15. If your yogurt goes too far, don't despair. It is still perfectly edible. All that has happened is that the casein network is breaking down. Even on great yogurt made at zero or 1%, when you start to cut into the yogurt, the whey will start to come out (syneresis). There is nothing wrong with the yogurt.
    
16. Now, if you have bought the pH paper, you can start to experiment to become more precise without the jiggling. Commercial operations test for pH, but I have always gone by sight. However, I tried to make a tricky yogurt based around Reuteri, and the pH paper really helped me. If you have the paper, rather than just looking at the texture, take a small sample out of the jar. If it is at 4.6 or lower, you have a yogurt that is good. Generally, a more optimum range for removal is a little over 4, but this may be difficult to get without higher milkfats. (BTW: If you use a small piece of paper, the roll it going to last for a long time.)
    

The Culture
Culture makes a tremendous difference in the nature of the yogurt, especially if you are making low milkfat yogurt. Commercial yogurt makers by law must use Streptococcus thermophilus and Lactobacillus delbrueckii bulgaricus. If you buy any yogurt at the store with live cultures, you'll find these bacteria inside of it.
Commercial operators buy their starters from special growers, such as Christian Hansen, for the species that we are interested in it is a requirement that the medium that they are grown in have certain characteristics. For example, the bulgaricus above need Ca++ to produce good cell walls. As far as I can tell, the exact specifics of the medium is a trade secret for the big growers, but Chandan's book describes it as most likely clear with the right factors, and they state that it most likely has key factors of milk and lactose in it. Even though yogurt bacteria can eat a cheaper sugar, you want to try and find bacteria that thrive on lactose. Thus they make a little "battle pit" for the cultures to thrive in. They deliver frozen cultures that are pellets that are highly concentrated. Chandan in his text book covers that commercial operations need to be careful about the defrosting process to ensure maximum vitality. However, many people will freeze some yogurt as a starter, and you are basically doing on a small scale what every large scale producer is doing.
Unfortunately, you can't buy from Christian Hansen as an end consumer. Normally your best bet is to use a bit of a consumer "plain" yogurt as a starter. In the USA, I find I get very good results with Mountain High yogurt. However, you'll need to find what works best for you.
I tend to buy a container of commercial yogurt and put it in the refrigerator for roughly use it for 3 weeks. This does mean that I'm always buying some commercial yogurt, but this doesn't bother me. As mentioned above, if I really wanted to save money, I should buy Mountain High, then freeze it into small yogurt cubes and keep it in the freezer and defrost before using. I don't do this, but if you wanted to save the hassle of always buying fresh consumer yogurt, this is a great option.
Backslopping
Most people know you can use a previous batch as the starter for the next batch, or what is known as back slopping. It is also commonly known that backslopping does not seem to work all that well for multiple generations.
Why does this seem to fail?
You've started off with a very pure couple strains of bacteria. However, they are so similar that they are subject to being attacked by bacteriophages or phages for short. Phages are viruses that attack bacteria. Phages are the single biggest destroyer of life. Here is a great little video on this invader.
Pure species yogurts are very suspectable to phage destruction. What happens is that your yogurt is working just fine, but eventually it gets invaded by phages in the local environment. These phages rip through your yogurt because the yogurt is all similar culture, and cause it to start to fail.
The second reason for culture failing is called "plasmid loss." There is an extrachromosomal entity found in starter bacterial cells called plasmid, which is a round DNA structure not in the main chromosome, but required to kickstart your yogurt. It turns out that when yogurt continues to multiply, these plasmids start to have transmission errors, and your starter just does not start as well. It turns out that Lactococcus species has this as a trait.
Heirloom cultures generally have a greater genetic diversity, and are less suspectable to phage destruction and plasmid loss. They also tend to continuously mutate, staying one step ahead of the phages, and most likely are strains that developed with a bit less of plasmid loss characteristics. I'm not 100% sure as I haven't done a ton of research on heirloom cultures.
I've put some additional thought in a reply to my own post below.
So, if you always want the same type of yogurt, you'll need to refresh your culture more.
Inulin
Recently, I have been experimenting with insulin, which is a prebiotic fiber. It is commonly added to drinkable yogurt, but there is research showing it has some other neat effects.

1. Supporting general probiotic growth in the stomach
2. Seems help the texture of yogurt
3. Seems to allow you to keep your yogurt longer without spoiling

The downside of inulin, including:

1. It doesn't alway mix nicely resulting in foam.
2. May introduce other bacterial components into your yogurt

This will be a place of experimentation. Generally, inulin concentration is from .5% to 2%. .5% is about two tablespoons of inulin per gallon.
I would suggest starting with .5% and seeing if you like it. This is not a lot. I'm really excited about adding inulin, but I don't have years of experience using it at home.
Other tricks:
Trick 1
While the process that I listed results in a nice texture with zero or 1% milk, there are two tricks that traditional yogurt makers use to make the yogurt thicker without adding milk fat or other stabilizers such a guar gum.
a. Leave the double boiler uncovered on the heating of the milk and don't put the cover back on until the milk gets to 180 degrees on the cooling phase. Then shake off any accumulated water off the lid every time you stir the milk until it gets to 100 degrees.
As you heat the milk, the water evaporates. If you leave the cover off, and then shake off the water once the cover is back on, you slightly condense the milk. This will make the yogurt more dense.
b. Add dehydrated milk or freeze dried milk to your base milk. In the early days, this was the standard way of making yogurt. By adding dehydrated milk to the milk, you raised the solids, which is the same as condensed milk. If you use non-fat dehydrated milk, this will also raise both lactose and protein. The protein may be fine, but this will leave even more undigested lactose in your mix, so lactose intolerant people should be careful on this.
c. If you really want a store type yogurt that doesn't experience syneresis (whey coming out when you scoop it), you'll have to add guar gum. I've never done this, but it doesn't seem too tricky. But is is one more step and expense.
Trick 2
Longer fermentation phases.
Classic yogurt is call thermophilic yogurt. This means "heat loving." Some heirloom yogurts are mesophilic yogurts, which means they can be created at room temperatures. The truth is that you can push the thermophilic cultures closer to mesophilic temperatures, and you'll find that you'll get a better texture.
To get my some of my best yogurts, I've cultured at 110 degrees for four hours, then I'll place the jars on the counter for another 2-3 hours for culturing at a lower temp.
As already written, I also like to use Mountain High as my culture. They pack in a few more bacteria (L. acidophilus, B. bifidus, and L. casei), which most likely grow slight better at a different temp. My theory is that by allowing the yogurt to sit at different temps, each bacteria has a better chance of being at their sweetspot temp for growth. However, I don't have clear research to support this.
Early in this long post, there was a reference to longer fermentation times. For reasons of safety and to crowd out competing bacteria, most food scientists suggest that you culture your yogurt at 110 degrees or higher. However, it is clear that longer than normal culture times may produce even a better yogurt. With the sous vide system, you may want to start culturing longer at a little lower temp. I would suggest starting with 105, and see how your yogurt and your cultures react. (In a reply to this post, I give the reason that you want to look at basically 31 to 45 °C (87.8–113 °F) as your range, and probably not have a really warm culturing environment.)
However, if you culture at under 110 degrees and for longer, you do really want to be careful of pathogens. In other words, make sure you strive to keep thing sanitized, make sure you get a pH of at least 4.6, and if you see any decolorization, pink spots or other, throw the yogurt away.
Trick 3:
Help come up with even a better denaturing process. In the post above, I gave you an idea of what I use for a denaturing process. And I believe you will find denaturing really is a big secret for texture. However, I don't think I have the perfect temp.
The attached table is from our textbook and shows tested ranges of temps and denaturing. We are guided that 80-85% make the best texture and helps growth of bacteria, but the text book is for factories with other types of equipment.
I'm hoping others can look at the data below, and if you have a double boiler, maybe you'll come up with even a better way of hitting the perfect denature target.

Temperature	Holding period	Denaturation of whey proteins
85.0°C (185°F)	20-30 minutes	85-90%
85.0-90.6°C (185-195°F)	30 minutes	85-90%
90.6°C (195°F)	15 minutes	85-90%
90.6-93.3°C (195-200°F)	2 minutes	70-75%
95.0°C (203°F)	8-10 minutes	90-95%

Smaller Batch Alternatives
There has been a new development around Reuteri yogurt, and you'll find basically the core of this post tailored for Reuteri in the Reuteri subreddit. One of the interesting things about Reuteri is that is grows well at 100F.
If you go to Amazon, you can find the Ultimate Yogurt Maker which allows for Reuteri yogurt, which allow you to precisely set a temperature for up to 64 oz. While I have never used the machine, it looks much like a Yourgormet System which I used for years, only with precise temp controls.
The price is very reasonable, and it uses glass jars for the yogurt. If you want to play around with a slightly lower temps to get better texture, this looks like a great solution which should be less work than the sous vide system. However, it is a lot smaller batch.
Welcome Comments:
You probably didn't expect to find what looks like a small books as a posting, but this is something that I was doing for others in my family. If you got this far, I hope it has been helpful. Feel free to comment or ask questions.

New updated introduction:
To address some of the comments, I will add that the title of this post should have been "A Engineer's Guide for a lower fat Reuteri Yogurt." As long as you are willing to have higher levels of milkfat, you can make your life a lot more simple. It is really NOT necessary to do the following to get out a batch of Reuteri yogurt with higher levels of milkfat.
The following should be thought of as "getting a blackbelt in Reuteri yogurt making." A lot of the data and techniques in this post are very sophisticated and depend on things like taking pH to dial in your results. Over time, doing the following will become automatic, and what seemed really complicated you'll do automatically.
But if your goal is to simply get out a quick batch of yogurt, there are more simple ways.
Introduction: Grounds up introduction to Reutri Yogurt
My sister-in-law dropped by this weekend, and she was highly intrigued by Reuteri yogurt for her mother. Because she had no yogurt making background, I said I would do a "grounds up" backgrounder for her. A lot of this is focused on equipment and a more precise process for making yogurt.
Rather than doing this for just one person, I decided I would post this to reddit, and hopeful some of this will be helpful if you are a newbie or an old timer.
From a practical standpoint, I think a lot of current reader of this sub-reddit can gain from going directly to "Practice Of Making Yogurt" section. If you already know about Reuteri, I would skip the preamble, and go directly to this section.
Who am I:
I have about 40 years of yogurt making experience, and I'm trained and degreed as an engineer. If you know any engineers, we can be slightly odd so if you don't like detailed oriented posts, you should probably stop reading now.
What this post will not do:
You may read some stuff that sounds slightly different than what you've already read. I believe that all of the following is based on the best research and experiments. However, I will not be getting into the research for the most part.
If you are interested in the science and research behind the following, I would suggest reading the post "Some Musing On Making Yogurt And L Reuteri," where I've put down a lot of theory, and others have given a lot of good feedback. If you think I'm wrong about the theory, it would be best to put those observation there because then we have all the science debate in one spot.
What am I trying to do:
Update: I am going to lay out a yogurt system that will allow you to make a lot of yogurt all at once, up to 192 oz (or six quarts) at a time. If you are just one person making Reuteri yogurt for yourself, this is probably overkill. I'll make some comments about a more limited scale system at the end of this post if you want a smaller amount of capability.
The end goal of this yogurt is to preserve bone mass (pushing out osteoporosis) in my wife as she ages, we've had a great 40 years of marriage, and I want to keep my sweetie healthy. (However, you may want to eat this yogurt for other reasons.)
Because research is fickle, we often see conflicting results from studies, so generally before you should really believe any results, you should look for a double-blind study with a significant amount of human subjects. Double blind studies generally remove a lot of doubt that are present in other studies.
We are fortunate that such a double blind study exists for Reuteri and bone loss in women. After a year of consuming 10B CFU (colony forming units), which is a measure of viable bacteria, the research shows you can cut your bone loss in half. While there are exciting drugs that can actually increase bone density, almost all of them do carry some risk of side effects. As a general whole, it would appear that taking Reuteri 6475 has little to no side effects versus the placebo group.
I just mentioned Reuteri 6475, and you may wonder what this is. Probiotics are a class of bacteria that get beyond the very acidic stomach are proliferate in the small intestine. The full name is Lactobacillus reuteri ATCC PTA 6475, which is a particular strain or sub-species that the researchers used in this study, and it is patented by Biogaia, who isolated it from Finnish mother's milk. It turns out that the strains of various Reuteri have very different effects, so if you want the bone sparing effects, you need to take Reuteri 6475.
While these results are very promising, they don't actually reverse bone loss, but simply slow it down. Secondly, while the yogurt is "natural" in some ways, it clearly has a drug like effect. Researchers are still speculating why the yogurt is effective, so I would also suggest that you should treat it like a drug and be careful about highly overdosing.
So why make the yogurt rather than buy the pills? If you create your own yogurt, you cut your cost of this treatment dramatically, while raising the effective dose moderately. If you simply took the Biogaia tablets, your cost would be somewhere around $500-600 per year. This is still a good bargain in my mind for cutting bone loss in half, but yogurt makes it far cheaper. Needless to say, Biogaia would rather sell you the pills than have you make your own yogurt because it is sacrificed revenue for them.
We need to thank Dr. William Davis for popularizing and showing that the Biogaia tablets can be cultured in milk. I will present some slightly different ideas from his methodology, because I believe the best research suggests this. However, we should all be thankful for his work in this area.
Practice Of Making Yogurt
Now to the practical stuff.
Let's talk about the theory of making yogurt at 10,000 feet.
To make yogurt from Reuteri, you will need to do the following:

1. Get milk. I would suggest a minimum of 1% milk fat.
2. Heat milk. This is for sanitizing and denaturing
3. Cool milk. Bring it to roughly 100F or 38C.
4. Inoculate. Put in tablets of Reuteri 6475 called "Ostfortis" from BioGaia
5. Allow growth. Details below
6. Slow growth. Cool to slow growth, put in refrigerator

Batch size and length of storage:
Properly created yogurt should store for approximately two weeks without any issue. After two weeks, there is some data to show that the Reuteri may start to die off.
Targeted amount of yogurt for consumption is 4 oz per day, which should be equivalent to approximately 6-12 BioGaia tablets. This means that ~64 oz should last you approximately 14 days. So, we want to make our yogurt 64 oz at a time.
It turns out that 64 oz pickling jars are perfect for this. They store wonderfully, and sanitize easily. So this is going to be the basis for our yogurt equipment.
So, what you need is the following:

1. Some 64 oz pickling jars. For those in the USA, go to Amazon and search on "1/2 Gallon Glass Wide-Mouth Fermentation/Canning Jar with 110mm White Plastic Lid." The cost of each jar should be under $9 per jar.
   
2. Buy a sous vide wand. I have two: an Anova and a no name clone that sells with coupon for around $50 off of Amazon. The $50 one works just great. You don't need to be too picky, just buy one with good reviews.
   
3. Buy the appropriately sized LIPAVI sous vide container and lid. Since I also make regular yogurt up to 3 jars at a time, I selected the 19 quarter model. You will need to buy both the base and the lid. This should be somewhere around $70 for both pieces.
   
4. Buy the ThermoPro TP510 for approximately $25
   
5. Buy two Winco Inset Pan, 7.0-Quart, Medium, stainless steel. Also buy one Winco Inset Cover, 7.0-Quart for the lid.
   
6. Buy some type of a handheld mixer. I exclusively use a discontinued Hamilton Beach mixture that has a blending disk that is perfect for yogurt. However, this is no longer available. However, the culture will need to be mixed in, and this should be done vigorously. You want something that can be sanitized, so evaluate on this basis.
   
7. Buy pH paper. Search for and buy 3110M18EA 325 Hydrion Short Range pH Test Paper Dispenser, 3.0-5.5 pH.
   

This will give you an exceptional at home system for right around $200 that features stainless steel interfaces, precision temperature monitoring, and the ability growth in glass medium. You can try and use insta-pots or other methods and be fine, but this will be a serious step up in capabilities to control and make Reuteri and all other types of yogurt.
Process Overview:
To get the best possible yogurt, we need to denature the milk to approximately 80-85% percent. If you go either higher or lower, the texture of your yogurt will be better or worse. A double boiler ensures the milk heated in such a fashion to ensure best possible results.
I'm going to assume you want to make 128 oz of yogurt, which will provide two people with around 4 oz of yogurt for two weeks.
I would also suggest that you start with normal grocery whole milk of 3.5% milkfat, although once you are good, you can go down to 1%. I would not suggest non-fat with the following process.
Prep The Sous Vide System:
The heart of the growing is your sous vide system. The goal is to have enough water so that it covers the yogurt jars up over the shoulder of the jar, just a little under the threads where the jar lid goes on. This is a little tricky because when you put in the jars, the water level will go up. So, you need enough water initially to get to the right level once the jars are in.
So, you want to do the following before making the yogurt, assuming you are using the 19 quart model as mentioned above and want to make up to 3 jars at a time:

1. Fill up fill 3 pickle jars with water up to the bottom threads.
   
2. Place all three into your container, and fill the container with water until the water is just over the shoulder of the jars, but not up to the threads.
   
3. Remove all three jars, and mark the side of the container with a Sharpy and write 3 on it. This is the line for water fill that you need if you are making three jars of yogurt
   
4. Place two jars into the container and do the same. Make a new mark for water for 2 jar amount.
   
5. Do the same for 1 jar.
   

Now, you have a premarked container that you know "how high to fill it" without jars. When you put in the jars, you will have the perfect height.
The second thing I would do is double check your sous vide wand for accuracy. Take the thermometer that you just bought, and fill the contain with water and allow the wand to bring it to 99 degrees. Then double check it with your thermometer. My cheap sous vide is exactly 2 degree off.
If you have concern that your thermometer is wrong, boil a pot of water. As long as you are at sea level, you should see a temp of 100C or 212F ensuring your thermometer is working right.
Yogurt Day
Preprep: I would suggest you start by filling your sous vide container with water to the 2 line, put in your sous vide wand, and get the temperature perfectly set to 99 degrees. This means as soon as you are ready to put in the jars, it is all set.
We often hear about sterilization but this requires an autoclave, but what we want is sanitization levels. Most dishwasher will sanitize glassware, so you want to wash the pickle jars before using, then make sure they stay covered. You will also want to figure out how to sanitize your mixer before using. You may pour boiling water over the mixer, put the mixing blade into the dishwasher, or even just spray it with rubbing alcohol, and let it dry.
This process will sanitize things other than the pickle jars and mixer, so you don't need to be quite as concerns about this.
Now for the milk:

1. Fill one of the Winco pans with about 1" of water. Then place the other pan into this pan to serve as the top of the double boiler. Turn on the heat to get the system going.
   
2. Now pour a gallon of milk into the top pan of your double boiler.
   
3. Place the TP510 thermometer onto the side of the pan. Make sure to tilt flat the holder so that it slides over the edge. You will not be able to get it on by just trying to slide it down.
   
4. The opening in the Winco lid provides an opening for the thermometer to allow you to cover the milk while monitoring the temperature. To get an accurate temperature reading, you will need to stir the milk. I temporarily removed the thermometer, and use it to stir the milk. Or you could use something like a stainless steel wand or glass wand. You may want to stay away from wood.
   
5. Monitor the temp until it gets to 203 degrees. Hold for 5 minutes. (Update edit: While the above is ideal, it is somewhat impractical because it is virtually impossible to "hold" the temperature at exactly 203. So, the following is closer to my actual steps: I have my stove on full blast until I get to about 204. I then turn the gas off, and the milk temperature will start to fall a little, but not much over the next 5 minutes.) Then remove the milk container and place into a water bath to bring down the temperature quickly. We need to do this to ensure that we don't over denature the milk. Leave the thermometer in to see the temperature decline, and you will need to stir the milk with a sanitized instrument to get the right temp.
   
6. Update edit: I may not have been clear enough here. You want to remove the inner Winco pan, and place this into a water bath to cool it down. Don't put the lower pan into the water bath because two pans don't cool down quickly. What is a "water bath"? I plug the kitchen sink, and I fill it with cold water. You could also have another pan that you fill with cold water. In my early years, I would place the inner pan on ice cubes, but water turned out to be a lot better and a lot less problems. The reason that you want to cool it down quickly is to stop the denaturing process, which really kicks in at around 180 degrees. I have tried to cool with an air fan to save water, but I could never figure out the appropriate process. The water method works.
   
7. You want to keep the lid on as much as possible to prevent any unwanted mold, yeast or bacteria to be introduced (as the temperature gets closer to 100F).
   
8. Once the milk hits 100 degrees, open three tablets of Osfortis, and dump it into the mix into the Winco pan. (3 tablet is overkill, but for your first batch, I would start here to have an overwhelming amount of Reuteri 6475 to make sure you crowd out any competition.)
   
9. The tricky part is making sure that the tablet is actually evenly distributed throughout the milk. To make a long story short, I don't think that the Osfortis naturally dissolves evenly. So, ideally you have two people during this step. One to be blending the mix, while the other dumps in a little at a time. If you have something clean, like a newly torn off aluminum foil, you may want to pour the table contents on this with just one person.
   
10. I current blend for about 1-2 minutes. I have some concerns that over blending the milk mix will introduce pathogens from the air.
    
11. Pour your milk from the Winco pan into your yogurt jars. A gallon should exactly fill two jars, but sometimes the blending may make some foam and you'll have a little extra to throw away.
    
12. Now take saran wrap and place over the mouth of the jars. If you make the saran wrap too big, you'll drag in your water. Just place enough saran wrap to cover the top to keep out invading bacteria.
    
13. Place these jars into your sous vide system, and wait for 16 to 18 hours. To get the absolute strong set, you want to not jiggle or test your yogurt until it has clearly started to set.
    
14. The bacteria will multiply and start to remove calcium and phosphate from the milk, which works together with the milk proteins to build what is called a casein network. This is what makes the yogurt solid. Because the Reuteri bacteria double so slowly and Reuteri is outgassing CO2, this network is built very slowly and being challenged by the CO2. You don't want to jiggle the jar at all until the structure is a bit stronger, so your goal is to not touch the yogurt until it is clearly to a point where the structure is strong.
    

However, if you continue to drive the yogurt to a very low pH, this network starts to break down, and you get curds and whey. The goal is to catch the yogurt just before this happens.

1. You should see setting/hardening when the culture gets around 1T bacteria for 128 oz. This happens at different times depending on the amount of starter you worked with:
   

   	Low Hours	High Hours
   1 Tab	22	26
   2 Tab	18	22
   3 Tab	16	20
   4 Tab	15	18

I've made these ranges very large because I have concerns that your temp or your process may not be the same as mine. However, after you get knowledge, I believe you'll be able to narrow these ranges down considerably.
Simply looking at the top of the yogurt at half hour intervals to see if the yogurt is starting to set. If you think it has set, press down a little with a toothpick, and you'll see it is no longer liquid. The process of setting up is very clear if you watch the top of the yogurt closely (you may need to use a magnifying glass) as the bacteria start to build the casein network out of tricalcium phosphate, which will look like a slightly different color. Now this is a bit of learned art, because the top will start to hard, but just under the top will still be liquid. So, let it go at least 30 to 60 minutes beyond when it gets a little top.
Then take a teaspoon and dig down 1-2mm. If everything has gone right, you'll scoop a tiny scoop of yogurt up. If you have gone too soon, it will be liquid and you'll need to let it set longer.
If you have yogurt and not milk, then use your pH paper to ensure that the pH is at least 5.0 or below. I will warn you that this will be a learned art because the pH paper will soak, and change color. You want to dip and immediately compare to the color paper. Classic store bought yogurt will plunge to under 4.0, but Reuteri seem to stop at a little higher pH.

1. If your yogurt goes too far, don't despair. You'll blend it together to make a drink. (If it goes way to far into really strong curds and whey, the taste changes quite dramatically. There is research that documents that normal yogurt when made too acidic starts to kill off the bacteria that made the yogurt, so you actually go backward. While I don't have proof, I believe that once you get into serious curds and whey and the yogurt doesn't really taste like yogurt, the bacteria count has gone in the wrong direction.)
   
2. Now the trick is that you want to try and cool the yogurt so that the casein network sets up and hardens. What is interesting about this yogurt is that Reuteri will continue to have some growth even in temperatures that are in the refrigeration range. So, put in your jar of Reuteri around 4.5. Overnight it will improve a bit, and over a week it will improve a bit more.
   

A yogurt of pH of 4.0 may dissolve into curds and whey at 100F, but it won't at 40F because the casein network is stronger. If you are trying to make yogurt with 1% milk, which naturally turns into curds and whey easier than whole milk, the best strategy is to remove the milk a little early at a slightly higher pH, then allow it to grow in the refrigerator until it gets closer to 4.0. While I've gotten at least one jar to 4.0, not all of my jars have gotten that low, so I am still experimenting.
Taste and Texture:
Over cultured Reuteri yogurt is growing it until it separates into curds and whey. At this point, the yogurt has a bad taste to me. It isn't anything like a normal yogurt, and it has a strong cheesy taste. I find that it leaves bad after taste.
If you culture the yogurt perfectly, you should get a yogurt that taste extremely similar to the non-flavored classic yogurts that you buy in the store. It may be a little less tart if you use lower fat milk, but it is pleasant.
For some reason, a lot of people report curds and whey on their first run at the yogurt. I believe that virtually all of this is due to over culturing the first batch. Then when they do subsequent batches, the bacteria grow less strongly, and they never get to curds and whey.
However, it may also be that Biogaia Gastrus tablets (something different than our method above) could also be the root of the issue. What I can tell you is that you can make a great tasting yogurt from Biogaia Osfortis tablets as long as you stop it at the right time.
Backslopping or using less tablets:
Many in this group have reported great success with blackslopping or using the previous yogurt as a starter for the new yogurt. My main concerns is that all home environments have other cultures that may supplant the Reuteri 6475.
Secondly, the number one threat to yogurt is phages. Single species yogurts are very suspectable to phage destruction. Based on phage destruction of non-Reuteri yogurt, I would suggest that after 3 to 4 cycles, you run a large risk that you are no longer growing Reuteri 6475. I want to emphasize that I don't know this for sure, and really it would be great if somebody sent their multigeneration Reuteri back slopped yogurt to Ombre to test for Reuteri. Until this is done, I have a bias toward using tablets.
With that written, almost all yogurt makers know that less starter tends to make a better yogurt with better texture. Right now, I believe that a good compromise is 2 capsules of Osfortis with a targeted culture time of 16 to 20 hours. However, I would start with 3 on the first batch to make sure you know for sure you have Reuteri based yogurt, which will have a slightly shorter culture time.
Update: After more reflection, I realized this section under emphasized the potential advantages from back-slopping. Once your know how to grow Reuteri from Osfortis, and you have a good sense of what Reuteri looks like, it is worth experimenting.
When commercial makers of normal yogurt in the 2012 time frame made their starter, they grew it on a medium that includes lactose. This was to make sure that they were trying to selectively find the right bacteria through a process of microevolution. At the allele level, the same species and subspecies may have slight genetic variation that allows a minor tweak to the genetic code eat lactose a bit better.
However, all indications is that Biogaia is growing their bacteria on 100% glucose MRS type medium. This means that this bacteria is more optimized for eating glucose. However, once we start growing out own Reuteri 6475, we will find that our local population adapts to lactose, and we get a population that is more suited to eating lactose.
I have not experimented with back-slopping since I am sitting on a bottle of Osfortis that should last me for months because I only use 2 tablets to grow 2 weeks worth of Reuteri yogurt. However, I am excited about back-slopping because it will show what the bacterial density of your yogurt is at.
How? Because I know that 2 tablets of Osfortis is 10B CFU, and 10B CFU makes around 4.5 pH in 18-20 hours. When I start to back-slop, if two tablespoons of the back-slop makes good Reuteri yogurt in 18-20 hours, I know there were at least 10B CFU in these two tablespoons.
Does this mean we should strive to move immediately to back-slopping and never use tablets? Unfortunately, we don't know if Reuteri eventually stops replicating well as per normal yogurt cultures. I think it is safe to say we should treat it like normal yogurt, and restart with tablets every 3 to 4 generations until somebody tests a 10th generation yogurt through somebody like Ombre to confirm that after 10 generations, the Reuteri is still the dominate bacteria. However, back-slopping makes a lot of sense for at least 1-3 generations because it should generate a more robust lactose eating bacteria with shorter cycle times.
Inulin
There has been a lot of debate about Inulin. What is clear from the research is that inulin is not required for Reuteri yogurt, however, it seems to have several benefits including:

1. Supporting general probiotic growth in the stomach
2. Seems to help Reuteri get all the way through your system
3. Allow Reuteri yogurt to survive beyond 14 days in the refrigerator if the temperature is a bit higher
4. Seems to help the growth of Reuteri while refrigerated

The downside of inulin, including:

1. It doesn't alway mix nicely resulting in foam.
2. May introduce other bacterial components into your yogurt

This will be a place of experimentation. Generally, inulin concentration is from .5% to 2%. .5% is about two tablespoons of inulin per gallon.
I would suggest starting with .5%, and seeing what your results are. If for some reason you do not like the inulin, I would suggest that you take in some amount in your diet anyway. I personally take in about 10g per day, and any additional amount added by my yogurt is tiny in comparison.
Daily dosage
Again, we are seeing drug like effects from yogurt. There is no indication that we would want just one type of bacteria in our digestive system.
My first order calculations show that 4 oz of this Reuteri yogurt should have about 30B to 60B CFU in it. This is 3 to 6 times as high as the bone loss study. The issue is that we don't know for sure. The key thing is to start slow and monitor yourself.
The double blinded study took place over 1 year. I suspect that this is a good canary to indicate how long it may take to show significant undisputed significant results. We don't know for sure, and some say that they see results immediately. Generally, however, most probiotic research is at least 2-3 months. So, if you don't see results right away, I would keep in mind that probiotics generally take a while to express themselves.
Welcome Comments:
I do believe that the above process is a high evolved solution that really helps a newbie create a viable Reuteri yogurt. I am not saying that this is the only way, but I do believe it will really help in creating the best possible outcome.
PS: Hi Sister-In-Law!
Post Notes:
Post Note 1:
While the process that I listed results in a nice texture with 1% milk, there are two tricks that traditional yogurt makers use to make the yogurt thicker without adding milk fat.
a. Leave the double boiler uncovered on the heating of the milk and don't put the cover back on until the milk gets to 180 degrees on the cooling phase. Then shake off any accumulated water off the lid every time you stir the milk until it gets to 100 degrees.
As you heat the milk, the water evaporates. If you leave the cover off, and then shake off the water once the cover is back on, you slightly condense the milk. This will make the yogurt more dense.
b. Add dehydrated milk or freeze dried milk to your base milk. In the early days, this was the standard way of making yogurt. By adding dehydrated milk to the milk, you raised the solids, which is the same as condensed milk. If you use non-fat dehydrated milk, this will also raise both lactose and protein. The protein may be fine, but this will leave even more undigested lactose in your mix, so lactose intolerant people should be careful on this.
Post Note 2:
This system is set up around being able to make yogurt up to 192 oz at a time. However, you may not want to make this much yogurt. As stated in the post, I believe that a reasonable dose of Reuteri yogurt would be 4 oz at a time and it should keep for approximately 2 weeks without an issue. Maybe a bit more with Inulin.
In this case you want 14 days * 4 oz = 64 oz capability. The tricky thing about Reuteri is that it most likley needs to be cultured at 99 degrees. The fortunate thing is because of the publicity created around making yogurt by the efforts of Dr. Davis, something like the Ultimate Probiotic Yogurt Maker should be a great solution because you can make exactly 64 oz, which would be perfect for one person that wants 4 oz per day.
At smaller batch sizes, the Winco double boiler is probably overkill, so you would want to find a smaller double boiler, but the rest of the process should be basically the same other than using the machine rather than the sous vide as a culturing spot.

So basically I have just got into fermentation with summer coming up thought I would try out tepache. I have a few questions though as I don’t want to poison myself/waste a load of fruit
1 - What bacteria strain is present in tepache? I have had a look online and it’s all rather vague
2 - How would you bottle and store tepache long term? I have seen that it goes off quickly but you can buy it canned (and unpasteurized) so clearly it is possible. I would quite like to make a few large batches and put in old kombucha bottles (I have a lot). That way I can just throw them in the refrigerator a few hours before consuming
3 - What fruits can be used? I know it is traditionally pineapple but would any fruit ferment and create a probiotic drink?
4 - Have any of you ever watered it down? I want it to be virtually alcohol free so I can have it throughout the day and not worry about driving etc and also give it to my children
Thanks for any help

So basically I have just got into fermentation with summer coming up thought I would try out tepache. I have a few questions though as I don’t want to poison myself/waste a load of fruit
1 - What bacteria strain is present in tepache? I have had a look online and it’s all rather vague
2 - How would you bottle and store tepache long term? I have seen that it goes off quickly but you can buy it canned (and unpasteurized) so clearly it is possible. I would quite like to make a few large batches and put in old kombucha bottles (I have a lot). That way I can just throw them in the refrigerator a few hours before consuming
3 - What fruits can be used? I know it is traditionally pineapple but would any fruit ferment and create a probiotic drink?
4 - Have any of you ever watered it down? I want it to be virtually alcohol free so I can have it throughout the day and not worry about driving etc and also give it to my children
Thanks for any help