Take the 2-minute tour ×  Most recipes for yogurt indicate that
you should eat/boil the milk, then cool it.  Is it possible to
skip this step, and use milk straight from the fridge? Would the
result be terribly different?  share|improve this question add
comment  3 Answers  up vote 6 down vote accepted  The biggest
reason to heat milk to almost boiling before fermenting is that
it improves the texture of the yogurt.  During fermentation the
bacteria consume lactose and produce lactic acid which causes
the milk proteins to denature and coagulate trapping most of the
fat. The proteins involved are primarily the casein proteins.
When this happens, there is still quite a bit of protein left
that isn't bound up in the new casein mesh. All of the albumin
proteins are water soluble and will not add to the structure of
the yogurt.  These albumin proteins denature when they are
heated. For this reason recipes universally call for the milk to
be heated to 190 and then cooled. The albumin is denatured and
is able to ta