swee'pea99
Member
Fair's fair & all that. Anyway, a starter for ten...
About a year ago I bought a yoghurt-maker, to try making Greek yoghurt at home. M&S charge almost £3 a pot for the real thing, and it's only infected milk, right? How hard can it be? First thing I discovered - and this is a bit of an aside - is that the mesh strainer provided was utterly useless letting most of the yoghurt through along with the whey. Fixed that by 'punching' a double-layer of kitchen towel into the strainer as a proper filter - perfect! But I digress...
Moving on...
I started out using M&S real Greek yoghurt as my starter. And it went quite well. The yoghurt wasn't quite as nice as the original, but you'd expect that, they're Greek, and they're using Greek milk, which is probably different. Also it was a bit of a pain that almost a third of every batch went into making the next, but hey ho, so it goes, overall, we were happy with it. Roll on nine months or something and I suddenly think, what if I used pre-strained yoghurt as my starter rather than post-strained yoghurt? If I could, given that post-strained yoghurt is about half the volume, that would work mean effectively losing a sixth to the new batch, rather than a third. So I googled it.
And Google AI came back and said yes absolutely, use pre-strained yoghurt, about 2 to 3 tablespoons per litre of milk. And I thought, sorry? Run that one by me again? 2 to 3 tablespoons? That's about 40 mil. So I get back to Google AI and say I've been using 150 mil per batch per litre, as per my yoghurt-maker's intructions, and now you're saying use 2 to 3 tablespoons. What gives?
And Google AI got back and said yes, well, the yoghurt-maker makers want to make sure that whatever you start up you'll end up with yoghurt. That way, they're in the clear. You use old yoghurt, thin yoghurt, tired yoghurt, cheap, watery yoghurt, you use 150 mils of it per litre you're gonna end up with yoghurt. Case dismissed. The problem is if you use 150 mil of good yoghurt your yoghurt to milk ratio is completely wrong. Bluntly, the culture doesn't have enough milk to work on, so it starts turning on itself. It's a different chemical reaction, and you end up with yoghurt that is yoghurt all right, but doesn't taste as nice. Trust me. Try it. Put two or 3 tablespoons in next time and see how it goes.
And I did. And guess what. It was really nice. Much nicer than before. And also, because I'm now using 40 mils of pre-strained yoghurt as my starter instead of 150 mils of post strained yoghurt I'm using about 1/24 of each batch for the next one rather than a third.
And that's entirely down to AI. Because if I just Googled without, what would Google do? Question about yoghurt-makers? - put up 10 yoghurt-maker makers' websites. Who else you gonna call, if the answer is to do with how to use a yoghurt maker? Plus if they go and buy a yoghurt maker at any of those links, we get money.
I think that is a key difference with AI: it engages with you, rather than just offers you links. You can hone in. You can specify. You can set parameters. And all of that can make a big difference to the accuracy of the answer you get. One of the key things it can do, if you brief it accordingly, is disregard anyone with skin in the game, often resulting in a less biased, more accurate, answer.
I can't see this thread reaching 70-odd pages,
, but I do think there's an interesting other side to the story, and that it's all a bit more nuanced than makes a good popular narrative.
About a year ago I bought a yoghurt-maker, to try making Greek yoghurt at home. M&S charge almost £3 a pot for the real thing, and it's only infected milk, right? How hard can it be? First thing I discovered - and this is a bit of an aside - is that the mesh strainer provided was utterly useless letting most of the yoghurt through along with the whey. Fixed that by 'punching' a double-layer of kitchen towel into the strainer as a proper filter - perfect! But I digress...
Moving on...
I started out using M&S real Greek yoghurt as my starter. And it went quite well. The yoghurt wasn't quite as nice as the original, but you'd expect that, they're Greek, and they're using Greek milk, which is probably different. Also it was a bit of a pain that almost a third of every batch went into making the next, but hey ho, so it goes, overall, we were happy with it. Roll on nine months or something and I suddenly think, what if I used pre-strained yoghurt as my starter rather than post-strained yoghurt? If I could, given that post-strained yoghurt is about half the volume, that would work mean effectively losing a sixth to the new batch, rather than a third. So I googled it.
And Google AI came back and said yes absolutely, use pre-strained yoghurt, about 2 to 3 tablespoons per litre of milk. And I thought, sorry? Run that one by me again? 2 to 3 tablespoons? That's about 40 mil. So I get back to Google AI and say I've been using 150 mil per batch per litre, as per my yoghurt-maker's intructions, and now you're saying use 2 to 3 tablespoons. What gives?
And Google AI got back and said yes, well, the yoghurt-maker makers want to make sure that whatever you start up you'll end up with yoghurt. That way, they're in the clear. You use old yoghurt, thin yoghurt, tired yoghurt, cheap, watery yoghurt, you use 150 mils of it per litre you're gonna end up with yoghurt. Case dismissed. The problem is if you use 150 mil of good yoghurt your yoghurt to milk ratio is completely wrong. Bluntly, the culture doesn't have enough milk to work on, so it starts turning on itself. It's a different chemical reaction, and you end up with yoghurt that is yoghurt all right, but doesn't taste as nice. Trust me. Try it. Put two or 3 tablespoons in next time and see how it goes.
And I did. And guess what. It was really nice. Much nicer than before. And also, because I'm now using 40 mils of pre-strained yoghurt as my starter instead of 150 mils of post strained yoghurt I'm using about 1/24 of each batch for the next one rather than a third.
And that's entirely down to AI. Because if I just Googled without, what would Google do? Question about yoghurt-makers? - put up 10 yoghurt-maker makers' websites. Who else you gonna call, if the answer is to do with how to use a yoghurt maker? Plus if they go and buy a yoghurt maker at any of those links, we get money.
I think that is a key difference with AI: it engages with you, rather than just offers you links. You can hone in. You can specify. You can set parameters. And all of that can make a big difference to the accuracy of the answer you get. One of the key things it can do, if you brief it accordingly, is disregard anyone with skin in the game, often resulting in a less biased, more accurate, answer.
I can't see this thread reaching 70-odd pages,
, but I do think there's an interesting other side to the story, and that it's all a bit more nuanced than makes a good popular narrative.
