Oh no, that's not good

[Boofer]

I make every effort to clean & sanitize my work area before I begin a cheese make. I use gloves as an additional guard against me possibly introducing something undesirable to my finished cheese. I endeavor to use the freshest milks and cultures to produce the very best cheese that I am capable of in my kitchen.

Yesterday, while shaking the bottles of milk to reincorporate the cream which rises in the bottle and adheres to the neck just under the cap, I thought I glimpsed something dark in the swirling milk. I thought "It must be the shadow of a bubble." But I remained vigilant, and when I poured all the milks into the kettle, I saw that dark thing in the milk again. It devilishly dodged my efforts to locate and fish it out of the milk, but I finally was able to get it with my skimmer. A bit later I spied a second larger bit of it and fished it out as well.

This was in my Twin Brooks Creamery creamline milk. Up to this point I had taken for granted that the milk I was using was pristine and unsullied. After this, I will be extra vigilant and suspicious when adding my milks. I hope this is a gross exception to what should be a clean creamery operation. I will be contacting Twin Brooks Creamery to inform them of this slip in their process.

The foreign body looks very much like a snail poop. I hesitated in my Tilsit #5 make yesterday and pondered whether I should just chuck the entire three gallons of milk in the kettle. Total cost for that: $25. I ultimately decided to proceed, with caution, and complete the cheese. I am hoping that this foreign body participated in the pasteurization process and so may be somewhat sanitized. Yes, I will always suspect this cheese and approach it warily.

-Boofer-

[ArnaudForestier]

Wow, that does not look good, Boof.  I'm strictly of the "when in doubt, throw it out" school, though I have to admit (not that this is valid - it's not, it's worse than other food types), I'm more forgiving of milk...I'm as likely a zealot for raw milk, as others are for pasteurization, a true flaw, I know. 

Still. remember that the problem with pasteurization is that people rely on it being "clean," but that says nothing about post-pasteurization processing.  Many, many outbreaks of serious illness and death, due to post-pasteurization error.  Ultimately, if aging the cheese long, I don't worry about it much.  Still, ewww, and I'd personally scrap it.  Save the "poop," bring it in to your university or some agency able to see what the hell that is, and inform the place you bought the milk from.  That does not look good, to me.  Just my $0.02.

[Spoons]

If you can't trust the milkman, who can you trust?

[Sailor Con Queso]

Boof - I would NOT alert the University or other authorities. A public complaint goes on their record and could cause more problems than you can imagine. After all the hoopla about wooden boards last week, why open that Pandora's Box? Personally, I wouldn't mention company names on a public forum either. I would let the "milk man" know about the problem, and I would ask them to compensate you for the milk. After all, you are paying for a "premium" product.

If this is a pre-pasteurization contamination it is as "safe" as the milk itself, however milk going to the pasteurizer should be filtered to eliminate this sort of thing. So, it is possible that this was introduced after pasteurization, during transfer, bottling, etc. It is probably just a fluke, but they need to be aware of it and work on their sanitation procedures.

If it is "poop" and contains a "clinically significant" level of coliforms, you will know within 24-36 hours when the pressed wheel swells. There are other things, like Clostridium spores that can also cause "late blooming" later on, around 30-90 days of aging. The good news is that you caught it and removed it before heating the milk to incubation temperature so the starter bacteria had a chance to out-compete the bad stuff.

Cheese inspection rules allow low levels of coliforms in cheese anyway, just like we allow small quantities of coliforms in our domestic water supply. By comparison, the FDA has adopted an unreasonable zero tolerance policy for Listeria. Ah... yet another discussion.

[Boofer]

Boof - I would NOT alert the University or other authorities. A public complaint goes on their record and could cause more problems than you can imagine. After all the hoopla about wooden boards last week, why open that Pandora's Box? Personally, I wouldn't mention company names on a public forum either. I would let the "milk man" know about the problem, and I would ask them to compensate you for the milk. After all, you are paying for a "premium" product.

If this is a pre-pasteurization contamination it is as "safe" as the milk itself, however milk going to the pasteurizer should be filtered to eliminate this sort of thing. So, it is possible that this was introduced after pasteurization, during transfer, bottling, etc. It is probably just a fluke, but they need to be aware of it and work on their sanitation procedures.

If it is "poop" and contains a "clinically significant" level of coliforms, you will know within 24-36 hours when the pressed wheel swells. There are other things, like Clostridium spores that can also cause "late blooming" later on, around 30-90 days of aging. The good news is that you caught it and removed it before heating the milk to incubation temperature so the starter bacteria had a chance to out-compete the bad stuff.

Cheese inspection rules allow low levels of coliforms in cheese anyway, just like we allow small quantities of coliforms in our domestic water supply. By comparison, the FDA has adopted an unreasonable zero tolerance policy for Listeria. Ah... yet another discussion.

Thanks for your input, Sailor.

As I said, I expect this was an anomaly. Therefore, contacting the creamery is my primary concern. And yes, I will be watching the development of this cheese very closely over (hopefully) the next year.

-Boofer-

[ArnaudForestier]

I'm sorry, I guess I don't see the issue.  I love Trader Joe's, but if we've gotten a crap product, we've let them know.  You don't buy from the creamery directly, right?  So, my suggestion would be to go the store where you bought the milk.  Most companies want to know - better this, than somewhere downstream, your local TV station, the BBC global news, the interstellar gossip rag....  You know?

I am not sure where this notion of "alerting the authorities" arises, as I'm certainly not suggesting that, and if that is what was inferred, let me be clear by saying I am not suggesting you try to bring down the company.  I just know if it were me, and I had what looks like a heart fluke in my milk, I'd like to know if it's well, a heart fluke, snail poop, a hedgehog hair, or something less, nasty.  And since I don't have the means to determine that, I'd want to take it to wherever I could find out.  Not as a punitive thing, but to simply find out.  And if it is a post-pasteurization issue, as I suggested, then that really is a serious breakdown in their SOP, and they need to know.

I sure as heck wouldn't use it, without knowing what I'm dealing with.  Again, that's just me, my $0.02.  Do what you want, buddy.

[Boofer]

Thanks for your perspective, Paul. I have passed this to the creamery. We'll see what their stance is.

If there is a next time, I'll be leaning towards tossing it. For now, the cheese is made, and I'm on Cheese Watch. As I said, my hope lies with the busy culture that comprises Alp D, and also the PLA mix. Enough good population should overpower any lingering interlopers.

The impetus for this posting is to make others aware that vigilance is needed in cheese making.

-Boofer-

[ArnaudForestier]

Cheese watch....hahahah, I love that.  We're all a bunch of cheese obsessives.  But at least we're a community that understands each other!  I just turned my 2 1/2 month tomme, and washed my little 1 pound "gruyere," with a morge of whey brine and some rind scraps from a Beaufort l'alpage, that I bought from Formaggio Kitchen.  Used my Amish farmer's raw milk to do a whey starter, and thought, what the heck, might as well eat the curds....!

Good luck buddy.    

[jwalker]

Yuck , that said , I have personally found little black specks in milk before when making cheese , so small though it was hard to tell what they were , nothing of that size.

I usually assumed it was something I missed in the kettle , as I never noticed them before it was poured in the kettle and floated.

Had I found something of that magnitude , I would have at least re-pasteurized the milk before continuing with my make personally , just to feel better about it , then I would have contacted the company directly and would have had it looked at under a microscope to determine what it was.

Otherwise , I would throw out the batch and ask for a voucher or a refund for the full three gallons (and maybe even three more for the trouble).

As for alerting the authorities , that boat has pretty much sailed , once you post the company's name on a public forum , it's out there for all to see.

There's really no way of telling who reads these boards or what they will do with the information.

[Spoons]

This thread reminds me of an episode of "Cheese Slices" with Will Studd where he was visiting an authentic Parmigiano Reggiano cheese factory in Italy, and in one sequence, you see the milk being poured into the copper kettle and there are black spots in the milk floating and moving around. They didn't look like Boofer's parasite looking thing, still it made me think how clean milk really is.

[JeffHamm]

Hi Boofer,

I would err on the side of caution on this one I think.  I'm not entirely sure all pathogens result in a cheese swelling up, so even if you don't get blowing (which would be a clear sign), that doesn't rule out a problem.  I suppose, you could return it to the store, or, if you communicate with the dairy, you can give them the cheese to analyse as well as the "snail poop"?  Remember, you found this broken, and got two parts of the poop out.  But how many parts in total were there?  That's a question you will be unable to avoid asking yourself each time  you try to enjoy this cheese.  I suspect, that will just make this cheese a worry, and not the source of joy one aims for. 

Anyway, if you do age it out, document any deviations from the norm (with photos, etc).  This could be a very educational cheese to follow, especially if it shows signs of contamination.  Knowing what contamination looks like (other than finding the obvious long black snail poopy like thing) is something we all should be aware of, though hopefully have little experience with. 

- Jeff

[Boofer]

Here's the response from the creamery:

"Thank you for contacting us with your concern. I am not sure what you found in the milk, obviously not snail poop, would not even know what that looks like let alone the fact that it would stay together. Is it a hair? Is it a  string? We have very stringent processing practices but if this came from our milk it just proves there is not such thing a perfection I guess. We after pasteurization run it through a clarifier to ensure cleanliness so if it was from our milk it could possibly have been something in the bottle from a previous customer that the washer was unable to get out. We do a visual check of every bottle prior to it going into the cooler also. I am sure that Met Mrkt will give you a credit if you bring it to them. The two pictures of the cheese wheels you showed are very beautiful looking and I can only guess that they taste even better. Do you do this commercially or just for your personal consumption? You obviously have a real talent. If you would ever like to see our processing in action feel free  to make an arrangement with us and I am sure that you will be very pleased. We apologize for your bad experience but may you continue to have much success making cheese."

-Boofer-

[Spoons]

Bottle sanitation makes sens. I googled it, and didn't find anything about bad sanitation practices on recycled glass milk bottles. I guess you got a 1 in 100 000 bottle type thing. You did the right thing by contacting the creamery, I'm sure they'll have someone checking the washing machines tomorrow.

Take the offer for the processing tour! It is the milk brand you mostly use for making cheese, right? That would be a nice educational cheesemaking/milk source trip.

I kind of found it funny that the person replying was trying to flatter you with your cheese making skills. It's more cost effective than giving you a refund I suppose 

[Boofer]

When considering whether to toss the whole kettle of milk after I had found and fished out the offending pieces of whatever, I wondered whether the exposure was limited to the one bottle or was indeed part of a larger contamination in the creamery vat, and thus all six half gallon botttles I had bought may have been compromised.

My fervent hope is that the one bottle had the problem hitchhiker and the rest of the milk was fine. I believe the milk was pretty new to the dairy case, having a pull date of June 26, so that would limit the hitchhiker's exposure.

Perhaps the unclean bottle theory is correct. Time will tell....

-Boofer-