Author Topic: Dead Starter  (Read 1787 times)

Offline Lloyd

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Dead Starter
« on: November 28, 2021, 10:14:22 AM »
Just made my regular weekly batch of soft brie/camembert style, and after 24hrs hardly a drop in pH.  And this was with a new starter.

I suspect the starter (Meso) is duff.  I usually make a batch and freeze it. As a test yesterday morning I took a cube of it, added a little milk, and have been monitoring the pH since. Again, no movement.

I guess I'm looking for confirmation that my testing confirmed the problem, but also, what could have gone wrong?  Dry starter was stored in the freezer, and was well within date (bb 11/2023).

When you make your starter, do you test its pH?  I've never thought (needed) to do that before now.

That's one Christmas trader who is going to be low on stock  :(

Offline Bantams

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Re: Dead Starter
« Reply #1 on: November 28, 2021, 04:15:54 PM »
Oh no! Is it possible your culture was contaminated by a bacteriophage? That happens with commercial cheesemakers who use the same culture every time, especially if they maintain a mother culture. 

Offline Lloyd

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Re: Dead Starter
« Reply #2 on: December 13, 2021, 05:31:32 PM »
Thankfully this appears to have been a one off. New starter, and everything back to normal.  Perhaps I was too impatient with the previous one, and being colder, it had not developed enough.  Lesson learned, from now on I'll measure the pH rather than just timing it.

Offline mikekchar

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Re: Dead Starter
« Reply #3 on: December 15, 2021, 12:11:32 AM »
Certainly bacteriophage is possible for the home cheese maker, but I *think* the odds are pretty low.  Commercial producers go through a lot of milk in comparison :-)  I've maintained yogurt cultures for years on end without any problem in the past.  Other people I know have done so as well (some of them maintaining the same culture for decades).  This is in line with my expectation that as an individual you would be unlucky to run into bacteriopage problems in your lifetime.  Of course, with a large enough sampling of people you will absolutely find some people who have had the issue.

The one thing I'll say is that I've had really mixed results using frozen mother cultures directly.  I now make up a healthy mother culture from frozen each time.  Usually, I'll make up the yogurt, then make up more from that starter, then make up more from *that* starter and use the result for making cheese.  This gives me dramatically better control and subjectively the cheese seems better for it.  I make yogurt almost every day anyway (it only takes 5-10 minutes), so it's really not as big of a pain as it might seem.