Wiki: Store Bought Cultured Buttermilk Mesophilic Starter Culture Making Recipe

This Wiki Article is a generic recipe for making Mesophilic Starter Culture using store bought manufactured Cultured Buttermilk. Mesophilic (low temperature) Starter Cultures are the most common in making cheese, many new and long-term hobby cheese makers use store-bought manufactured Cultured Buttermilk and the following recipe to concentrate it until they “graduate” to manufactured cultures, some never graduate as they find the wider range of micro-organisms in Cultured Buttermilk gives them better tasting cheese.

Ingredients

Making Cultured Buttermilk Mesophilic Starter - Warming & Growing The Culture

• 0.5 liter/2 cups fresh store-bought Cultured Buttermilk (basically a flavor bacteria in skimmilk). Note, this is different from buttermilk, which is what remains of milk after making butter where the fat is removed.

Directions

1. Set the Cultured Buttermilk in its container on kitchen counter with lid cracked to relieve pressure and allow to reach ~21 C/70 F room temperature to ripen and increase the bacteria population density. After 6-8 hours (less if warmer room temperature, more if colder) the buttermilk should be much thicker like fresh yogurt and sourer than at start. If not thick enough, let sit for a few more hours.
2. Use as per cheese making recipes that call for this type of starter, pour remainder into a full-sized clean ice-cube tray and place into freezer.
3. Once frozen, to store for future use, remove the cubes and place in a clean sealed labeled container or plastic freezer bag to reduce contamination and freezer burn.
4. The resulting ice cubes are each ~30 ml/1 ounce of liquid mesophilic starter. Add cubes (thaw in milk) to your recipe as required. If recipe does not contain amounts then use 1 average sized ice cube per liter of milk or 4 per US gallon of milk.

Tricks & Traps

Making Cultured Buttermilk Mesophilic Starter - Pouring Ripened Buttermilk Into Ice Cube Tray

Tricks

• If using in first cheese making, ripen culture overnight so that can make first cheese next day.
• To propagate more starter simply thaw one cube and add to 0.5 liter/2 cups of fresh milk, mix thoroughly, and stand at room temperature for 16-24 hours or until the consistency of fresh yogurt.

Traps

• Not allowing culture to ripen long enough resulting in weak culture used in cheese making and subsequent improper pH profile.
• Not labeling freezer container/bag and 2-3 months later getting it confused with frozen Thermophilic Yogurt Culture cubes.
• Not using clean ice-cube trays, resulting in contamination of your culture.

Making Cultured Buttermilk Mesophilic Starter - Frozen Excess Culture For Future Use

Making Cultured Buttermilk Mesophilic Starter - Pouring Ripened Buttermilk Into Ice Cube Trays