And it is soooo good! I got the original recipe from  A Year of Crockpotting and I've tweaked it to make it work for me. This is so much better than store bought and unbelievably cheaper!

Ingredients
1 half gallon of milk
1/2 cup of yogurt

I've decided to go as organic as I can so I shelled out the $6 for a gallon of organic milk. Also went ahead and bought plain, organic yogurt (Safeway's O brand) which was somewhere around $3.50 or so if I remember correctly for 27oz.

Action
Pour half the gallon of milk in the crockpot, turn on low for about 2 and a half hours. (Last night I forgot about it and it was on for probably 3 and a half hours, oops!) This should bring the temperature of the milk up to about 180 give or take. This kills off the current bacteria in the milk, sterilizing it and the crockpot (or so those Google searches say). I'm thinking this part could be done on the stove top to save time, but you'll have to watch the milk and not over do. I'm not a fan of heating milk and anything I can turn on and not stand over totally wins for me!

Now turn the crockpot off and allow the milk to cool down for about 3 hours or until the temperature reaches between 115 and 110 degrees, though I've also read as low as 105 via  Google. Just don't let it get too low. It needs to be right around this range to allow the good cultures to mulitply and take over.

Spoon approximately 2 cups of warm milk into a bowl and stir in about half a cup of yogurt. Mix thoroughly and add it to the crockpot.

Now the fun part. Your crockpot needs to sit, undisturbed, in a warm place for several hours. If your house is warm, just wrap your crockpot in a heavy towel and leave it. It's winter, my house is cold. I preheat my oven to about 150 while I bundle the crockpot in a heavy towel. The monstrosity is then shoved into the warm oven (that has now been turned OFF) and left to sit for 10-12 hours.

In the morning, or when you remember it, pull it out. Smells like yogurt! It is thinner than the regular grocery store stuff you buy. Transfer the yogurt to whatever container you wish to store it in and refrigerate for a few hours before serving. It'll thicken slightly.

Serve
My kiddos will not eat plain yogurt and this stuff is not sweet like they're used to. Spoon yogurt into a bowl, add a dallop of jam (your choice of flavor), sprinkle on some flax seed and granola and you've got one tasty, healthy treat! It's dessert-able! Makes for a yummy breakfast!

Notes
My first attempts I did not use organic milk and the entire thing was quite runny. I switched to organic and while it is thicker, it seems a bit clumpy. I think I'm going to try less heating in the beginning next time.

There are things you can do to thicken if you desire- add powdered milk, add pectin, but I found these unnecessary, we just adjusted to thinner yogurt.

You might find a thin, yellowy liquid on top, that's whey. I mix it in to the yogurt, you could drain it and use in other recipes if you desire.

Set aside about half of a cup of your yogurt for your next batch! You can continue this for a few times before you'll need to purchase yogurt again to restart your cultures. I did 3-4 batches  before replenishing. It slowly got thinner and thinner.

If you like tart yogurt, let it sit longer. It will also be slightly thicker the longer it sits.

You could strain it through coffee filters or cheese cloth to get it even thicker if desired.

Rough math: For about $3.58 I'm making 64 ounces of yogurt (rounding out the purchased starter yogurt to .66/half cup).  That comes to $0.055 per ounce. Currently at Safeway, Lucerne is on sale (as it often is) 10 for $5. That's only 60 ounces of yogurt for $5 ($0.083 per ounce) and it isn't even organic and I'm sure, loaded with unnecessary ingredients.