POWDERED DRIED YOGURT CULTURE (YEAST)

In the world, to date, fresh culture is used for the production of yogurt. The milk, after being boiled or industrially pasteurised, is incubated under airless conditions with culture by adding fresh yogurt.

In many countries flavoured yogurt is known and consumed, whereas in some countries unflavoured yogurt is not known. Sending the fresh yogurt culture without degradation to these countries and to places where it is needed is an arduous and costly procedure. Due to these reasons, in order to ensure the longevity of the culture and the need of transportation to distant places without affecting its milk-incubation capacity, the production of powdered dry yogurt culture was developed, hi this way, those who want to prepare yogurt, particularly unflavoured yogurt, are enabled to do so. Yogurt powders are being produced in the world. However, these cultures lose their incubating characteristics since during their production the temperatures and pressure factors are adjusted so as to obtain the powder only and incubation of milk using these products is impossible.

In order to avoid these problems, the present technique was developed for transportation of yogurt to different places by using "powdered dry yogurt culture" which is prepared taking into account appropriate pressure and temperatures, and therefore, preserves its incubation characteristics.

Together with the prevention of the degradation of the culture this powdered culture incubates the milk without losing its incubating characteristics and enables cost-effective way of transportation to long distances and it can be prepared for yogurts with or without kefir or flavoured yogurts.

The plain or enriched (kefir, fruit and herbal flavours) cultures prepared with the developed technique can be used as agents for increasing texture as well as the nutritional values in the production of:

• baby foods. • flour (bakery) products,

• chocolates and biscuits.

Particularly the kefir yogurt can be used for the preparation of instant fresh baby foods with its immune system enhancing properties.

The method for producing this culture facilitates traditional drying methods as well as different industrial low-pressure drying methods.

The stages of the method for producing powdered dry yogurt culture (with or without kefir, fruit or herbal flavours) are as follows:

a) The desired amount of yogurt (with or without kefir, fruit or herbal flavours) is spread in a 2-3-4 mm layer in drying containers, teflon pans or over cloths or nylon sheets and left to dry for 2-3 days at latm pressure (760 mmHg or open air pressure) at temperatures of 25-35°C, b) or in industrial type driers (ovens) under the above conditions, c) the powder of the dried yogurt is obtained by grinding or crushing, or industrial pressing and then the powdered dry yogurt culture is air-tightly packed.

The resulting flavoured yogurt culture powder (with or without kefir) is used as follows:

One table spoon (15-20 g) of the yogurt culture powder is added to one water glass (200 ml) of warm (25-30°C) milk and is left to incubate (ferment) for 3-4 hours.

The product can be safely used for one year due to its very low risk of degradation. The powdered dry yogurt culture prepared with this method can be easily and cost-effectively sent to places where fresh yogurt is not available.