What is that clear liquid one finds in an opened yogurt container?!
Answers: I beleive it is called whey.. it is the liquid as in curds and whey.. you can just drain it off or you can mix it in. I like my yogurt thick, so I sometimes take a few peice of cheese cloth and put in a strainer, add the yogurt and put it over a bowl and let it drain for a few hours up to a day. You can cover the whole thing with plastic wrap.
Not to worry. The ingredients are separating. Just stir it back in.
Whey. It is the water seperating out from the yoghourt/yoghurt/yogurt curds. Remember Little Miss Muffet, eating her curds and whey? Well, she'd was eating the solid curd and the watery whey.
When Little Miss Muffet sat on her tuffet for a quick snack that fateful
day, she never got to finish what was perhaps the 18th century version of
one of today's popular dairy snacks--curds and whey.
We know it as yogurt... it is the Whey that is the liquids
"Little Miss Muffet,
Sat on a Tuffet,
Eating her Curds and Whey,
Along came a spider,
Who sat down besider her,
And said, "How can you EAT that stuff???"
I believe it is whey - the liquid that is left when you remove the milk solids from milk. In the case of yogurt, a lot of this liquid remains suspended with the yogurt but it will separate out gradually. A lot of recipes ask you to suspend yogurt in a strainer to remove this liquid before using the - now thicker - yogurt. It's no big deal.
Just separation, no worries. But here is a tip that works for yogurt, sour cream, and similar dairy products. If you don't use the entire container, use the back of a spoon to smooth the top of the remaining product in the container. Get the top as smooth and flat as possible. This really works and will reduce the separation, next time you open it there will be little or no liquid on top.