Hey Bear - first of all, I'm no authority on anything, lol. Well, maybe cooking French grub. Beaufort/Abondance just happens to be my area of intense interest, as I love its traditions (much like Alp is a son of his fatherland, so would be myself, for La Vielle France), and the cheese itself...a kind of demon antic at my soul, demanding more and more! I relied on Sailor for my initial recipe and understanding, and a ton from Linuxboy and Francois as well.
As to that high a temp, I personally don't go that high. Part of it is as you called it, I don't want that much syneresis. Keeping in mind that Beaufort is actually like 88 lbs and above, and I'm maknig Abondance, I'll tend to stay around 124 (for 12 pound wheels), a bit higher for the larger wheels.
Different sources cite different cooking temperature ranges for Beaufort. An exhaustive study from Lille indicates 127-132F, while Beaufort AOC calls for 127-129F.
The study I cited didn't have any added LH, but I'm certain it exists in the raw milk. Looking through a couple science texts (Fox et al's Cheese: Chemistry, Physics and Microbiology, for example - pg. 125, Table 1), they show helveticus to be absent in gruyere. I've really taken to Alp's whey culture method - geeked about it, to be honest. I can't think of a more effective way to be utterly transparent - to convey the flora in the milk alone - than this method. Interestingly, the same text cited above, for whey culture they indicate helveticus typically dominates - 85%. Mind you, this refers to grana whey starters. Point of interest here:
deproteinized whey starters with rennet (Fettsirtenmagenlab, Présure à la ‘recruite’) which are used for the manufacture of Swiss-type cheeses (Emmental, Sbrinz, Gruyère; see ‘Cheese With Propionic Acid Fermentation’, Volume 2) in small cheese factories in the Alps. Invariably, thermophilic lactobacilli (Lb. helveticus, Lb. delbrueckii subsp. lactis) dominate cultures produced under selective conditions (high temperature) while streptococci (Sc. thermophilus, but also lactococci and enterococci) often dominate cultures incubated at a relatively low temperature (42 °C), which usually show higher microbial diversity (Parente et al., 1997).
-I'm going to rethink my whey isolation and incubation regimen accordingly. Under any circumstance, my bought SLABs sit in their pouches, freezing and sullen!
Something of note, I think - keeping in mind that Beaufort is characterized by avoiding the eye-formation seen in emmental and other alpine cheeses with eyes (a consequence of higher relative salting and lower temperature, and, especially for Beaufort, the higher fat content of the make
*, which suppresses eye formation; as a few reasons), it's interesting to read of the apparent symbiotic relationship between helveticus and propionibacteria. From v. 2 of this series,
Several investigations have shown that thermophilic lactic acid bacteria, especially Lb. delbrueckii and Lb. helveticus, can stimulate the growth of propionibacteria
(note - I can't recall where, but I once read a substantial amount of stuff saying propionic was not entirely
avoided in Beaufort and its cousins - its biochemical and microbiological effects add distinctive characteristics to these cheeses; just that we're avoiding too much, and certainly its production of gas. It's native to raw milk, anyway, and my guess is, that suffices, given Beaufort/Abondance vat process and affinage.
NOW, to really screw stuff up, this is from Fox, Fundamentals of Cheese Science:
Beaufort is a French variety similar to but larger than (~ 45 kg) Gruyere, but only Lb. helveticus is used as starter.
And the previously cited Lille study indicates the "permitted" cultures used are thermophilic, "primarily lactobacilli." Lol. There goes the notion that it is ST, and not the lactobacilli (esp. helveticus) that predominates.
As with all of this - which drives my reductionist mind absolutely batty - there's probably no clear answer. For me,
probably, the more I read, the more I think I'll shy away from helveticus, unless doing grana styles. Nevertheless, I'm certain it's in my raw milk. And, at the end of the day, I think we also have to ask, where's the sensory threshold? In other words, if L. helveticus and L. bulgaricus share certain sensory traits, at what concentration would their differences manifest, what concentration would trip the sensory threshold? I think that's probably a more important question to ask.
You and I share brewing experience - this question is something we asked all the time. I know when I really started to get into brewing on a commercial level, I geeked out my mash schedule with a lot of steps, to finesse mouthfeel and so forth...beta-glucans, protein, beta- and alpha-amylase, all of that.
Until I read some literature going into this in depth, showing that for the most part, the molecular weight resulting from most of these steps was so low, that no consumer with a normal palate, could tell a difference. Back to single-step infusion.
I surmise it's much the same here. I suspect that unless we're making big changes - all L. helveticus v. all L. bulgaricus, all S. thermo v. all L. helveticus, in p/h milk - we can't tell the difference.
Probably the best logic I've seen, comes from Alp: some process (like his, or Linuxboy's) of producing a whey starter, replete with a host of mesophilic and thermophilic - as long as it's a clean starter, I wouldn't think it really matters
what mix you have of lactococci, L. helveticus, bulgaricus, lactis, S. thermophilus, etc. If you consistently make a batch that suits your cheese's character, replicate it each and every time (given the balancing act needed with changing seasons, changing period of lactation, etc.), and draw a whey starter from it - eventually, you'll end up with the right mix anyway, whatever critters and whatever their amounts, exist in your cheese. That's my plan, anyway. I'm feeling pretty much done with pure-strain, bought cultures.
*I'm thinking of several breeds. I've made contact with a genetics guy in Normandes and Tarentaise, both of which have their benefit - Normandes have an almost ideal p/f ratio, while Tarentaise are unique in possessing b-casein variant C, thought to impart the piquancy, forward, "animal" nature of Beaufort, when compared to its gruyere cousins. However, Beaufort is also higher in fat than the other cheeses, which begs the question - why not Jerseys? John Putnam of Thistle Hill milks 100% grazed Jerseys - and his "Tarentaise" is one
hell of an Abondance, in my opinion.