Raw milk / Bath Milk

[shaneb]

Hi Guys,

I'm not wanting to start a debate, just wanting to point out a rather disturbing news article in our local news this morning. A toddler has died and four other children have become seriously ill from drinking raw milk sold as bath milk (not sold for human consumption). I had considered using bath milk for cheese, but I think I'll pass for now.

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/toddler-dies-four-children-seriously-ill-after-drinking-raw-cows-milk-20141210-124lx8.html

Shane

[TimT]

Mate, you'll be fine.

Even the FDA in America, famous for overzealous regulation, reckons it's fine to have cheeses from raw milk so long as the cheeses are over a month old. In the ageing the cheeses acidify and kill any bacteria. The whole point of cheesemaking is the acidification: as the bacteria produce lactic acid, the milk separates into curds and whey. This natural lactobacilli induced fermentation makes conditions more favourable for the good cheesemaking stuff and less hospitable for the nasties.

In regards to that specific story... I saw it earlier, via the ABC. It's just not very good journalism. They all appeared to have got it from a Herald Sun story a day or so ago. The facts of the story so far as they go are true; but they don't go very far. All that's known is the child became ill 'after' drinking raw milk. We don't know if the child had an illness or allergy or pre-existing condition that exacerbated their illness. The other cases of children who became ill 'after' drinking raw milk appear to be unrelated: we don't know when these cases occurred, if the children had a pre-existing condition, or what brands they were drinking (apparently they were unrelated brands). Furthermore, it may even have been the case that they contracted the infections from some other source - not raw milk!

[shaneb]

Thanks Tim. Yeah the more I read of it the more it sounds like a media beat up. The kids were no doubt unvaccinated as well. I'll get more experience up with the cheap supermarket milk for now. It allows for a lot of inexpensive experimentation.

All the best.

Shane

[TimT]

Yeah it's worth being aware of the risks anyway - though it doesn't help when irresponsible media sources exaggerate said risks. What's your latest cheese project? In the past few days I've made three Lancashire cheeses!

[shaneb]

Just simple stuff here. A couple of baby double brie's on Tuesday. My third big brie has now been wrapped. Hopefully at 12°C it will be ready by Christmas. A photo of it is below. I would like to do another hard cheese, but my wife and daughter would like me to make some feta for them. I suspect they will win out. 

I'll have to read up on Lancashires. I'm not familiar with it.

All the best.

Shane

[TimT]

Niiiiiiiiiiiice looking Brie!

Temperature and humidity control is an issue for me that I've yet to tackle so I just can't tackle some cheeses yet. Bries and most cheeses with added molds, bacterias (brevi linens), etc.

Lancashire is very simple and the concept appeals to me. It was traditionally made by people who'd save curds over several days until they had enough to put into a final cheese; the natural variability of the curd quality gave an interesting texture and flavour to the final cheese.

The recipe is simple. Heat some milk up to 31 degrees C. Add culture. Keep the milk at 31C; after an hour; add rennet. Let the milk curdle for another hour. Cut the curds, then let them settle below the level of the whey for another half an hour. Pour off the whey to the level of the curds, and for the next half hour give the curds the occasional stir to make sure they keep on losing whey. Through all this just remember 31C, 31C, 31C - it's the magical temperature!

Then spoon them out into cheesecloth and tie them up into a bag and hang it up to drain for an hour. Then chuck it into a cheese mold (or.... maybe carefully place it in the mold) and press lightly, 10 lbs, for two hours.

Finally, take the cheese out of the mold, break up into curds again, salt the curds, pour the curds back into the cheesecloth and the cloth back into the mold, and press again at 10 lbs.

Keep it there for four or so days. Turn the cheese four or so times the first day and once a day thereafter.

What were we talking about again? Sorry, I think I bored *myself* to sleep too.

Oh yeah, so basically it's an extremely simple hard cheese; very lightly pressed and drained and usually eaten quite fresh so it retains a lot of the softness and juiciness of the milk. It's good stuff man!

[OzzieCheese]

Shane,
Don't conned either by the 'Just because it's Raw - It's Better'.  This is where the situation can get clouded by emotion.  If you know your producer and know their practices and are local, there would be no argument  - I'd use it. I grew up on Raw milk and I still drink Raw milk - when I can get it.  I actually went to the producer and chatted to them and they quite happily gave me a tour of the farm and it was better than anything you could imagine a dairy to look like.  But I still follow a few personal rules, because after the 'Cosmetic Milk' leaves the bottling area they have no control over anything else. So, I never buy it if the bottle looks 'Swollen', Never buy it if it is more than 2 days old - on the one I buy there is a bottled batch date.  I don't make cheese using it - though I would like to - but my wife won't eat it.  And lets call a shovel a shovel ... in the report there was no details about how old the milk was, how it was stored, what it was mixed with...  BTW the report is flawed in its details about when it became Law in Australia.  Pasteurisation was 'introduced' in the 1930's but wasn't 'law' until much later in some case MUCH later.
http://www.pir.sa.gov.au/biosecuritysa/foodsafety/dairy/raw_milk_products_-_qa
■The national food safety dairy standard produced by FSANZ and endorsed by all Australian Ministers requires that milk is pasteurised. This is made law in South Australia under the Food Act 2001 and the Primary Produce (Food Safety Schemes) Act 2004.

Further,  they fail to compare similar 'Outbreaks' and 'illness' of contamination Chicken, Pork and seafood or deaths caused by Booze, cars and speed (both varients). 

Me personally, I would like to be able make a informed choice instead of being dictated to - protected for my own benefit - Please... It really was introduced to protect 'Big Dairy' and extend the travelling distance of the product.

 

[SOSEATTLE]

"Even the FDA in America, famous for overzealous regulation, reckons it's fine to have cheeses from raw milk so long as the cheeses are over a month old. In the ageing the cheeses acidify and kill any bacteria."


The FDA actually requires raw milk cheeses to be aged a minimum of 60 days.


Susan

[shaneb]

Thanks. This brie is a lot better formed than the last one. Hopefully it tastes as good as the last one.

The Lancashire sounds interesting. So at what point do you save the curds to combine multiple days? What conditions would the curds need to be left under? I did a bit of googling on Lancashire cheeses and came across this one.

http://www.hartingtoncheeseshop.co.uk/buycheese.asp?buycheese=19&cheesecat=6#

It looks and sounds interesting.

I'm still battling humidity control. Temperature control is not too bad though. I think it doesn't help that the humidity in melbourne is so low to start with. I received a second ultrasonic fogger today and have made a float to hold three of the foggers but the depth that they are sitting is a little low. I'll need to sort that out later. I need to also replace all of the shelves in my cave. At present it is full of glass shelves, but as I'm using a vegetable crisper as my water source, the glass shelves make it difficult to spread around the humidity. I think I'll get some pine planks with some gaps to use as shelves.

At the moment I'm back to having Tuesday and Thursday off work, so no doubt these will become cheese days for the moment.

All the best.

Shane

[shaneb]

Thanks Mal and Susan. That is interesting to know. I might have to talk to my uncle who was a dairy farmer up until a couple of years ago. He may know a good and safe source of milk.

Shane

[TimT]

Susan, thanks for picking me up on that! OzzieCheese, some great tips there. When I buy raw milk I try to get it fresh.

Pasteurisation has a more complicated history than some of these health experts imply. According to Cheese Making Help - the blog for the New England Cheese Corp - it took on in the US due to historical coincidence more than anything else ( http://cheesemakinghelp.blogspot.com.au/2013/04/real-milk-needs-support.html ):

How did we get so obsessed with pasteurization anyway? After World War II, retail milk’s competition was based on how much cream your milk had—the more the better—which was clearly visible because of “the cream line.” But this made the cheaper, less rich milk harder to sell. So the dairy industry started homogenizing the milk to do away with the cream line. That catch is that once milk is homogenized, if there is no further processing, it will go rancid in a matter of hours, which didn’t happen as quickly when milk was kept in its natural state. So pasteurization was mandated, first by states and then federally.

Of course we're not the US, but we often follow their lead.

[TimT]

Shane, your question about when you save curds to make Lancashire is a good one. Short answer - we don't know! I haven't found any definitive information on this forum (the recipes you'll find usually use buttermilk as well as culture, which I assume is meant to substitute for the additions of curds over successive days). Professional Lancashire makers probably still use a technique for saving curds - but, like a cloth-bound cheddar, they're keeping it under wraps. (Ho ho ho ho... sorry.)

So I've been sort of experimenting. I did a post about my experiments here and would love feedback and tips on how to improve my method.

My best guess is that the milk is curdled as normal, and the curds are cooked as normal but then set aside in a cool, safe place (ie, nowhere where your dog or cat can come along and gobble them up!) I put mine in the fridge overnight - still in whey (it just seems the right thing to do). I'd also guess that additions of curds from previous days are kept to a minimum level, so the 'base' for the cheese you are making is fairly predictable.

Anyway, I've tried this (or slight variations on the process) in my method, so when we slice into the cheeses in a bit we'll see what they taste like

[shaneb]

I found this explanation.

To make Lancashire Cheese, starter and rennet is added to milk. When the milk has curdled, the curds are cut, then the whey is drained off, and the curd is pressed until dry. The curd is let sit overnight, then chopped up, and fresh curd from that new, second day is added, mixed in and it is all salted. Some producers only mix first day curd and second day curd on the third day. The cheese is then pressed for two days, bandaged, waxed, or buttered, and let mature.

I recall reading your thread and found it quite interesting. I don't have anything really to add though at this stage.

Shane

[TimT]

Fascinating! Maybe I got my version around back-arsewards but then again I'd imagine there's quite a lot of variations you can work with this process.

[shaneb]

Yeah I wouldn't be surprised if there are many recipes. My only issue is that would be making cheese mess daily for three days. It is bad enough cleaning it up once or twice a week. I'm not very organised at the moment. I need to improve on my processes to make things a little less cleanup intensive....

Shane