Author Topic: Hello from Stockholm, WI  (Read 1623 times)

rbannen

  • Guest
Hello from Stockholm, WI
« on: January 13, 2014, 02:48:43 AM »
Hi, my name is Robbi. Two years ago we got a bred heifer and after she had her calf, I started making cheese. It was quite an undertaking. I am following instructions from a woman who writes for The Small Farm Journal. I make my own starter culture and am currently making 5 kinds of cheese-all aged because I want to have cheese for the whole year. I made about 30 wheels last year and it got us through. I feel like I'm floating out in a sea alone. I read books and I practice. I don't think I will live long enough to understand cheese making. The more I know, the more there is to know! I'd love to know if there is anyone else out there making their own starter culture?

Sailor Con Queso

  • Guest
Re: Hello from Stockholm, WI
« Reply #1 on: January 13, 2014, 04:48:11 AM »
Describe exactly what you mean by "making your own" starter culture.

You might want to take a look at this thread:

Making Mother Cultures

rbannen

  • Guest
Re: Hello from Stockholm, WI
« Reply #2 on: January 13, 2014, 04:57:39 PM »
Thank you for your reply and the stellar photo essay. I do this on a very small scale and don't use a commercially pre made culture to inoculate. At the start of my milking season, I sterilize a pint and a half jar and fill it with fresh, warm strained, clean milk. I let it sit for 24-48 hours. It sets up like yogurt but it's not really like yogurt-more translucent as the fat rises to the top. I skim of the cultured cream and then use the starter to culture my milk for cheese and also to reinoculate a jar of milk every three days. In the winter I make cheese every day or two. I know I have it backwards but my summer season is too busy farming.

I do realize that from year to year and possibly week to week, my starter could contain drastically different bacteria. Somehow I need to overcome my fear of the ph meter. Last year, I just was hoping for edible cheese. This year, I want to understand what I've gotten comfortable doing and refine all aspects. I'm really lucky to have a commercial kitchen here on our farm and walk-in cooler and a secondary room that I can keep at 40-55degrees for aging. I wish that someone that knows something could taste my cheese and help me evaluate. They're fine(my family loves them), they taste so clean, but I'd like to be able to identify exactly what is going on in each cheese by tasting and then have a strategy for tweaking them to something better than "fine".

Thanks again. I love the thread that leads to another thread...

Sailor Con Queso

  • Guest
Re: Hello from Stockholm, WI
« Reply #3 on: January 13, 2014, 08:57:43 PM »
Robbi, I call your style of cheesemaking Farmstead. What you are doing is perfectly acceptable however, as you have figured out, the types and ratios of bacteria are subject to change. So getting consistent results and "tweaking" can be challenging. I am a microbiologist by education, and a cheesemaker by trade, so IMHO it is difficult to get exact results if you don't know which bacteria that you are starting with. And because you are always using more or less the same native bacteria for every cheese, it is very difficult to tweak recipes and alter your flavor profiles. With commercial cultures, you can add a little of this and a little of that to get predictable results. For example, you have no way to change bacteria for a Gouda vs Cheddar vs Swiss.

The category of bacteria that you are almost entirely eliminating are the Thermophiles. Because you are incubating your starter cultures at lower temperatures, the mid-temperature loving bacteria, Mesophiles, will always be dominant. That makes it very difficult to produce cheeses like Swiss, Parmesan, Gruyere, etc.

What 5 types of cheese are you making?

Now, that being said, there are traditional cheesemakers all over the world that rely on native bacteria and do not use commercial cultures. I have watched cheesemakers in Italy who let their fresh milk sit overnight to allow native bacteria to grow. Then they add some whey left from the previous day's make to increase the bacteria population. They've been making cheese like this for a long time so it obviously works.

If you and your family are happy with your results, then don't worry about what other people think.


rbannen

  • Guest
Re: Hello from Stockholm, WI
« Reply #4 on: January 15, 2014, 09:36:35 PM »
Sailor, here's the rub, right? This farmstead approach does suit my personality. My discomfort might be that part of me that really wants to understand everything that is going on. I can live with the variability but I would love to understand it. Also, milking one cow means the milk changes with season and lactation. So, here's a question, what kind of testing could/should I do that might help me understand what I'm doing? Can I get over the ph meter fear? Do you have a brand of meter that you love? I bet there is a thread somewhere about ph meters-I'll look.

As for cheeses, I'm making camembert, a cheese that I do let the night milking set out-an old glouster recipe out of Patrick Rances, Cheese of Great Britian, a tomme, a cheese that I press then and coat in butter-swaledale, and a bandaged wenslydale-chedder-like. Your point is well taken that I'm using the same bacteria, so the only differentiation is the small differences in make, press and aging.

If I kept track of ph development all along the way, what would you say I would learn? Is there something else I should do?
And thanks.

MrsKK

  • Guest
Re: Hello from Stockholm, WI
« Reply #5 on: January 16, 2014, 03:19:06 PM »
Hello, Robbi!  We are neighbors, almost!  I live just north of Menomonie on a small homestead and milk just one cow, for now.  I've been making cheese for about 6 years and have been teaching home cheesemaking classes through community ed in our area.

I'm drooling over your commercial kitchen, walk-in cooler and the aging room you have.  So very jealous!

I use clabbered milk as a cheese culture, too.  Or store bought buttermilk during the colder months because clabber doesn't set up well over the winter in my house (we keep it 58-62 degrees, not happy culture temps).  For thermophilic culture, I use store bought Greek yogurt to make my own yogurt, then use it as cheese culture.

I go as gadget-less as possible with cheesemaking, wanting to be used to doing it when the world falls apart, if and when that is in my lifetime.  The cheese ends up differently from batch to batch sometimes, but I actually like the variation and have learned a lot from it.

I hope we can get together sometime!

rbannen

  • Guest
Re: Hello from Stockholm, WI
« Reply #6 on: January 16, 2014, 07:20:32 PM »
Hello Karen,

It would be lovely to get together. Cheesemaking is such a singular pursuit. And your approach is so reassuring. If you look at recipes in books it appears that it's all about boughten cultures. This cheese forum shows that there are many ways of going about it-no surprise, I guess. What kind of cow do you milk? When do you dry her off? I'm with you on making things work. It feels like quite a network of folks out there. Let's chat at the very least. Thanks for your reply!

MrsKK

  • Guest
Re: Hello from Stockholm, WI
« Reply #7 on: January 17, 2014, 11:22:55 PM »
Ma Ingalls was always my hero, which has had a big influence in always trying to make things myself just as much as I can.  Which led me to getting my own milk cow, eventually. 

My cow is 3/4 Jersey, 1/4 Holstein and I've been milking her for 5 1/2 years - six months into her fifth lactation right now.  I'm not sure when I'll dry her off because I'm putting off breeding her back by a bit.  We also have her heifer, born in April 2012 that we are currently trying to get bred and I want to milk her, too.  My ideal would be to have them freshen at opposite ends of the year (spring/fall) and let them raise calves to finish off their lactations rather than milking two at a time.  But, who knows?

I've learned to be really flexible when it comes to cows and cheesemaking and have been pretty happy with the results on both.

In March, my DH and I usually make a trip to the Mississippi to watch eagles, so I'll contact you closer to then and maybe we can work in a visit at the same time?