Upstate Farms v. Hoover's: Which milk makes better yogurt

The observation: Hoover’s Dairy milk is better, even if only because it comes in a glass bottle. Upstate Farms supplies most of our local stores with milk. Hoover’s requires either you to sign up for delivery or a drive out to Sanborn.

The question: Is Hoover’s milk really better?

We are loath to acquire excessive amounts of single-use kitchen gadgets. Hence we have no yogurt maker. Or for that matter, bread machine, air fryer or stand mixer. I go old school.

OK, I admit: We did recently acquire a brand new Jack LaLane Juicer for $3 from a Lewiston Antiques sale. I still like it but probably only for a few more uses.

The hypothesis: Hoover’s whole milk would make more, and better yogurt than Upstate Farms Dairy Cooperative

The experiment:

A quart of Wegmans Pre and Pro Biotic Super Yogurt costs $4.99 and comes with live cultures. That means you can use it to make more yogurt.

Hoover’s Dairy sells whole milk in glass bottles for $1.85 a quart. It’s $2.49 a quart at Wegmans ($2.29 at Tops).

I scalded the milk in both of our 2-quart Le Creuset plans, the older orange one with the wooden handle that came from an estate sale and the newer blue one we received as an engagement gift 40 years ago. Don’t ask me why I think of the blue one as newer or how old the orange one us. We love Le Creuset even if it is super-premium.

Both heated for about 10 minutes over medium gas burners set to 3. As they started to shimmer and set a film on top I shut the heat off and stirred a tablespoon of Wegmans yogurt in each.

Then I filled our two largest saucepans, a yellow enameled Martha Stewart one and a blue Le Creuset.

The Le Creuset was an estate sale conquest. They sell for about $400 new. I saw it for sale for $35 and immediately bargained them down to $30 because they didn’t know what it was. Let the seller beware.

45 minutes after putting the now inoculated milk in, blue was at 150 degrees. Yellow had dropped to 140 degrees.

Our kitchen thermometer is an old NorPro that came from The Podge 20 years ago. I have a nice new digital one but when the battery died, I never replaced it. I turned the heat on for 5 minutes and then shut it off and set the timer for 45 minutes.

I forgot about both for about 90 minutes and the temp dropped to 110. I put the heat on high for 5 minutes. Martha raised to 150. Creuset hit 160.

Both seemed still liquid. 90 minutes later, the temps were 110 or so. The Hoover’s yogurt fully set. Upstate looked a bit curdled but not solid. I turned the heat back on for 5 minutes and got it back to 140 degrees.

I know from previous experiments it comes out with the consistency of store-bought Greek yogurt.

With the yogurt fully formed, I let it sit overnight at room temperature and then filtered the whey off.

The conclusion: Upstate had 1 ½ cups. Hoover’s had 1 cup.

Yogurt yield was 24 ounces for Hoover’s, 16 ounces for Upstate Farms. There is no discernible taste difference.

A second conclusion: The Martha Stewart pan was cheap at an estate sale and is slightly larger than Le Creuset. It is also decidedly inferior. We have another midsized enameled cast iron pan for which I paid $2. It is Descoware and tried to compete with Le Creuset. These days it is a bit of a collector’s item but side-by-side, it is every bit as good.