Customer Reviews

Koolatron TCYM-07 Yogurt Maker 7 Jars (5-Ounces Each), White

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

This is my first yogurt maker. The price was great (<$20 elsewhere) and I wanted glass jars rather than plastic. Our small family enjoys yogurt from these jars, and also from a 4-cup Pyrex container used to make larger, one container batches. The yogurt has come out very nicely, and with very minimal effort using a bit of store-bought yogurt as a starter, whole milk, and in some cases a bit of powdered milk. The batches are done in 8 hours. Initially I made a few batches during daytime hours to make sure it 'worked', but now I make a batch overnight.

Many other yogurt makers I looked at had more attractive designs, or "turn off" functions (be sure to investigate these - you still need to intercept the yogurt and refrigerate it once a unit turns off), but for the money I felt this was the best buy. I have not had any issues with the unit heating up beyond 'warm.'

I would recommend this for a household of up to 3 people (if you eat yogurt daily, the 7-jar limitation found in many models could pose issues for 4+ people). I am giving it 4/5 stars because it works well and serves the purpose, but could probably be given a design facelift.

I have been making my own yogurt... it is so delicious. I never will buy yogurt again except for the culture if I run out of the packaged culture.
You cannot compare the taste with store bought yogurt. This yogurt cooker is fine... it was very inexpensive. the cover could fit better. I like the jars because they are straight and it is easy to remove the yogurt. The lids are a little hard to take off and on. For the price and the result I would recommend this yogurt maker to others. In fact I have.

Love this thing! Warm up milk, put in a dollup of yogurt, plug it in, and the next day you have 7 jars of yogurt. Put it in the fridge and add any fruit or preserves to taste. What could be easier? And it is economical on top of all that.

I received this yogurt maker from my boyfriend in February. Yes, I am a yogurt addict and he knows it :-)
When I received this toy, my roommates were ecstatic! We all used this in the house: nothing better than home made yogurt with your cereals in the morning or as a dessert. We used to make at least 3 batches per week. I wish I had more jars at the time to avoid making new yogurt very other day (I discovered recently how to get more jars, see later).

I like to put frozen berries in the yogurt in the evening and eat it in the morning... the berries melt and release their juice in the yogurt... mouthwatering and so natural! Or I add a little brown sugar or honey, plain oats or whole grain cereals and... breakfast is ready! Sometimes I feel tropical and I put coconut flakes and pieces and juice of canned pineapple. It is great also with raisins and cranberries or fresh fruit.

The yogurt you make at home is usually less tart than the plain yogurt you buy at the store. I make yogurt usually from freeze-dried yogurt cultures (this works great for me: Freeze-Dried Yogurt Starter), sometimes with fresh plain (preferably organic) yogurt from the store and I leave it overnight. I always save one jar for the next batch's starter culture, so basically you will have only 6 servings per batch. Somehow you can't go on indefinitely with this method because if you don't renew your cultures, after 10 batches or so the yogurt becomes watery and not firm. I don't like powder milk or anything else to make it firmer so I just use a fresh starter culture. I noticed that the fatter the milk, the firmer the yogurt. I use mostly organic partially skimmed milk but when in Europe I used UHT milk and the yogurt came out great.

Coming back to the machine, this is not my first yogurt maker, I had a similar one at home that I could not take with me. The one I had before was quite similar to this one, but the nice thing about the other one was that it had screw lids - very convenient!
The jars of this machine are a little small and the lids are hard to remove. The center jar can be replaced with a bigger jar (I used a small Smucker's jam jar), so you can make almost 8 servings or 7 servings + starting culture for the next batch. Accidentally I broke one jar and I had a hard time finding a glass jar that would fit the machine.
But one day I discovered that baby food jars fit magnificently in the machine... and they have a screw lid! I think that I will substitute all the jars with baby food jars.

Other than the jars, the machine works fine, it is very easy to clean and it is relatively small.
I give it 4 stars only because of the jars.

I got my yogurt maker today and I was excited to share with everyone my success with this product. It only took me 6 hours to get my yogurt to set versus the recommended 8-10 hours. I used 4 cups skim milk, 1/3 cup powdered milk, and 6 oz of Dannon plain Greek yogurt. I boiled the milk and powder to 170F cooled it to 110F added yogurt, then poured it into the cups and cooked it with the jar lids off. I do not think there is a problem with the heating element like in the other reviews.

I like the fact it comes with glass jars, but I wish the lids were twist on rather than pop off, its a bit of a tight fit.

Well, I can't say if it's the best machine, because it's the only one I've used - but it does the job of making delicious yogurt. There are other models that look exactly the same but cost twice as much, so I can't imagine what they do differently.

At any rate, you have to figure out what your technique will be. I start with 1% organic milk, and heat it on the stove as instructed in the directions. I prefer to use organic Greek yogurt for a starter, then mix in a few tablespoons of dried milk for thickness. I've tried powdered cultures but for some reason they didn't take. I think they were supposed to be refrigerated instead of stored in my cabinet...oh well. I've never used the little jars because I don't want to deal with all that pouring and washing of them later, so I just used a Pyrex bowl. It doesn't even allow the machine's lid to close entirely, but it does seal off the top of the bowl, and then I just wrap a towel around the whole thing. Ten hours later - perfection!

I've strained some batches through a coffee filter to get really thick Greek-style yogurt and it was amazing. The only thing I could wish for is that it wasn't such an odd shape (to accommodate those jars) so that I could fit a larger bowl inside to get more yogurt made at one time. Overall, I've got to say this is one of the few appliances taking up space in my kitchen that I actually USE!

I purchased this yogurt maker when my Salton yogurt maker died after many years of use. The Total Chef Yogurt Maker received good reviews (at another website), which is why I decided to buy it, but it was a disappointment. The base gets very hot; the manual recommends 10-12 hours to make yogurt, but after 8 hours the milk was more curdled than yogurt. The glass jars are a good size, but the lids are hard to put on or take off the jar. I've made my own yogurt for years and the only difference was the change from the Salton with its lower warming temperature to the Total Chef unit.

I bought this yogurt maker mostly because my husband wanted single servings, and I wanted glass jars. It's been fantastic in the two months we've had it - I make a batch or two a week. I'm not too particular about how I do things - I don't boil the milk first and I use a store bought yogurt as my starter (takes about half of a single serving yogurt to start a batch, I freeze the rest of it until needed again). I've not been timing my batches - I mostly make them on my days off from work, and leave them at least five or six hours before I start checking them. As soon as I shake a jar a little and it stays solid, they're ready to go into the fridge.

After reading these reviews I was apprehensive about the lids on the jars being too tight. They're just perfect, in my estimation. They snap on and off easily, but are tight enough that I can carry the jars by their lids if I want to.

I haven't had any issues with the unit sweating. Maybe that's because I don't put hot milk in there in the first place?

The only reason this unit misses out on five stars is the lid of the whole unit. It's awful. It's hard to line up to place on the base. It doesn't stay on when I move the machine to put it away. It's just terrible design. Awful. The fact that the lip of the machine and the lid undulate doesn't help, and actually makes it impossible for me to ever jerry-rig another lid to fit the machine if I wanted to put a taller container of some sort into it. However, I can live with that as the single flaw in an otherwise great machine. I'd definitely recommend this product to others.

I was thrilled with the cups and got all excited to make my first batch of yogurt. I put everything together and went to turn the unit on. The "off and on" switch was stuck in the off position and would not switch on. I called the 1-800 number in the directions and got a recording. I am totally disappointed. I had put stickers on the cups and lids to make them cute so my daughter would be more likely to eat the yogurt and now I have to return the unit.

How dissapointing that this item stopped working after three uses. I did find that I can just wrap up a bowl (covered) with a heating pad underneath and get the same result. This was a waste of money.