I have a whey problem

Sounds nasty!

Not really.  As I continue experimenting with yogurt-making, my biggest issue has been runny yogurt.  I want thick yogurt, like Fage, a creamy delicious Greek strained-yogurt.  Key word: STRAINED.  The company's website has a short, fun cartoon explaining the process, found here.

Well duh, I haven't been straining my yogurt, so if I wanted similar results, I would need to strain the yogurt to reduce the whey.  I'll let Wikipedia explain whey.  I don't often resort to unconfirmed sources for explanation, but type "whey" into Google & you'll be inundated with body building websites.  So Wikipedia it is.

I grabbed a recent batch of homemade yogurt (made with 2% milk), poured it into a strainer lined with a clean white handkerchief & suspended over a bowl in the fridge for a few hours.  Ta-da!  Thick, creamy, just-how-I-like-it yogurt.  But then my health conscious mind went into overdrive...."I just got rid of whey!  Isn't whey supposed to be some super-healthy product?  Is my yogurt un-healthy now??"  Back to Google I went, trying to find an answer.  Yes and no.  I did strain out a lot of calcium, along with additional vitamins.  But I also concentrated the yogurt into a more protein-packed food.  See here.

Answers weren't very clear & I still am not sure just what I'm getting rid of.  Oprah  kind of gave me an ok to strain out whey.  But like Wikipedia, I take it with a grain of salt.

I found two variations that might assist in reducing the whey & allowing me to not strain nearly as much whey out of the yogurt - adding dry milk in addition to the liquid milk before heating it & scalding the milk for a longer period of time to really force the proteins to bind.

We'll see what happens.