Author Topic: Rest time after adding culture  (Read 3561 times)

stepb

  • Guest
Rest time after adding culture
« on: September 29, 2012, 05:10:37 AM »
What is the reasoning behind allowing the milk to rest after adding your culture. I see that most recipes on this site require time between adding the culture and the rennet.

The book I have very rarely has this rest time. I am using sub-cultures from a mother culture. Do I not need to rest the milk if I am adding a fluid culture which is already activated? But do need to rest it - if using the powdered direct vat culture??

Any help?

Steph

Tomer1

  • Guest
Re: Rest time after adding culture
« Reply #1 on: September 29, 2012, 12:30:23 PM »
This is not resting but an acidification period.  the cultured is allowed to work and convert lactose into lactic acid - lowering the pH of the milk.

How much to acidify before renneting depends on the style of cheese.

MrsKK

  • Guest
Re: Rest time after adding culture
« Reply #2 on: September 29, 2012, 12:38:48 PM »
Tomer is correct - it isn't resting time, but culturing time.  The culture is a collection of living organisms that need warmth, food, and time to grow, multiply and do the job of acidifying the milk.

Just out of curiosity, what book are you using?

stepb

  • Guest
Re: Rest time after adding culture
« Reply #3 on: September 30, 2012, 02:16:31 AM »
The book I am using is "Home Cheesemaking" 2nd ed by Neil & Carole Willman (Victoria Australia)

MrsKK

  • Guest
Re: Rest time after adding culture
« Reply #4 on: September 30, 2012, 05:26:54 PM »
I'm not familiar with that one.

Do you like the recipes and general info in the book?  I just did a search on our library website, but they don't carry it.  I do like to check out different books from time to time, even though I have one that works well for me.

stepb

  • Guest
Re: Rest time after adding culture
« Reply #5 on: October 02, 2012, 02:57:53 AM »
I have just sourced Ricki Caroll's book from the library so now I have something to compare the Willman's book with. The most interesting thing I find when comparing them is the Willman's book utilises a variety of cultures - ie: they nominate particular mesophillic cultures to use (MM 110 or MM100 etc). Apparently the Willman's  are suppliers to the cheese industry, therefore you can source many different cultures from them. They seem to stock Choozit brand cultures which they give other names "for ease of use" - culture A, culture B.

Getting back to the book - presumably the different culture strains they recommend for their different recipes will result in a different taste when compared to recipes followed in Ricki's book just using "a" mesophillic culture. In fact I was quite surprised that Ricki's book comes across as more basic in the respect of selection of cultures. However you must keep in mind it was written for the home cheese maker and when writing a book you have to think of the target audience and not scare them off with it being to complicated. Overall the recipes are similar.

I have only been making cheese since Easter so being a novice I am just trying to absorb as much information as possible.

Steph

margaretsmall

  • Guest
Re: Rest time after adding culture
« Reply #6 on: October 02, 2012, 04:14:56 AM »
The Willmans are the owners of the Cheeselinks Co. in Victoria, Australia and they supply amateur cheesemakers as well as the industry. You can buy the book from them for the very reasonable price of A$26.40 (I have no connection to them except as a satisfied customer).  The person whose workshop I attended obviously bases her recipes on the Willmans, so  I feel comfortable with them. However, it is still a beginners  book, (a good one) but for the more in-depth information some of us are looking for, the book is not written yet. (Sailor? Linuxboy? Iratherfly? Francois? Are you listening?)
Margaret