Yoba yogurt starter – a yoghurt culture with a story

Yoghurt starter – Yoba for Life

A yoghurt starter with a story. Yoba lets you ferment milk into yoghurt at home. The culture was developed to create small local yoghurt businesses in parts of Africa.

Supporting the project

All profits from the sale of this starter culture are donated back to the Yoba for Life project.

What is yoghurt?

Yoghurt is a fermented dairy product produced by bacteria that convert lactose (milk sugar) into lactic acid. This acid thickens the milk and gives yoghurt its fresh, slightly tangy flavour. Most yoghurt is made from cow’s milk, but goat, sheep or buffalo milk also work well. Each type of milk produces slightly different textures and flavours. Different starter cultures create different yoghurt styles.

About the Yoba starter culture

The Yoba starter culture was developed as a yoghurt culture that can easily be used anywhere in the world. It contains selected lactic acid bacteria that ferment milk into a firm, mild yoghurt in about twelve hours.

Content

• 1 gram yoghurt starter culture
• Enough for up to 100 liters of milk
• Allergens: milk

Why a dried starter?

• dried starters have a long shelf life
• easy to ship/take with you, also abroad
• does not deteriorate due to transport
• light in weight (shipping costs)
• you can buy the starter even if you do not intend to make yoghurt immediately
• you can save a part in case the quality of your fresh yoghurt deteriorates
• after activation, the effect of dried yoghurt as a starter is identical to fresh yoghurt

Storage instructions

In the freezer. Save the dried yogurt starter in a Ziploc bag after use, or vacuum-sealed. The starter is highly hydrophilic – if moisture gets into the package, the quality will deteriorate. Shelf life is at least a year in the freezer, but probably longer.

Activating your Yoba yogurt starter

1. Bring 1 liter of milk to a gentle boil at about 90°C. Be careful not to burn the milk, or the yogurt will have a burnt taste. This step is necessary to kill existing bacteria in the milk that might react with the starter. Heating the milk also denatures the proteins and the fat molecules are rearranged so that this produces a better yogurt.
2. Heat for ten minutes, stirring. This provides an extra firm yoghurt later. If you use sterilized (UHT) milk, this is not necessary.
3. Allow it to cool to the desired temperature (around 42-43 ° C)
4. Add to the starter. Stir the milk gently, without whisking, because whisking introduces air bubbles in the milk, which will slow down the incubation.
5. Keep it overnight (ca. 12 hours) in your yogurt maker at 42-43ºC. Check if the yogurt is thick, if not, leave it longer and check every few hours, and once the yogurt is firm, turn off the yogurt maker, and let the yogurt cool for 2 hours.
6. Further chill the yogurt for at least 6 hours in the refrigerator. Cooling the yogurt makes it thicker and tastier. Enjoy!
7. For thicker Greek yogurt, drain the yogurt for several more hours in a cheesecloth and colander.

The story behind Yoba for Life

Microbiologist Remco Kort from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and Wilbert Sybesma together founded the non-profit initiative Yoba for Life. Their approach was deliberately sustainable: rather than distributing food aid, they focused on transferring knowledge and on a starter culture that can be used on the spot. Communities could then make their own yoghurt.

The project began in a village near Lake Victoria in Uganda. From there it expanded steadily. Today around 300 small-scale yoghurt enterprises operate across several African countries, including Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia and Tanzania. These micro-businesses use the Yoba starter culture to make affordable yoghurt for local markets.

For those entrepreneurs it produces an income that keeps running. That was the idea: not a one-off gift, but a business that keeps going.

Online Yoghurt making course

You will learn all about making yoghurt (and other fermented dairy) at home, without the need for special tools, in this online English spoken course by the founder of startercultures.eu. You will learn to ferment any yoghurt, keep your own culture going and save money by never having to buy yoghurt again!