Author Topic: Way to "revive" expired Flora Danica?  (Read 4432 times)

Offline Paisley

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Way to "revive" expired Flora Danica?
« on: November 19, 2015, 09:45:07 PM »
Hello All! First time cheese maker here seeking a little advice on what to do with all my expired Flora Danica (EXP 02/2013 :o).

A while back I was given a cheese kit that makes camembert, blue cheeses and the like but I never got round to trying it out as about the same time I moved city, bought a new house, ect. With all that was going on, the ingredients were promptly shoved to the back of the fridge/freezer, equipment left packed away in a box and completely forgotten about. Then just the other day I found myself with a free day. Thinking that if I gave camembert a go I might have something in time to enjoy over Christmas, I pulled everything out only to discover it was all past the use by dates :(

I was going to give up right there but then I thought for the price of 2L of milk why not give it try, everything is just going to go in the bin anyways right? So followed the instructions; added starter culture, rested 90mins, add rennet, left for 60mins then test for a clean break. At this point curds where definitely setting but not very solid so I decided to leave it for longer (ended up leaving it about 1hr more). Then proceeded to cut the curds and stir, curds seemed a little soft, like loose set jelly and broke apart despite my effort to gently stir it, but oh well - in the moulds they go.

Today is now day 2 of flipping, still early days I know, but things seemed to have going alright (cross fingers). I've browsed the internet a little and from what I can gather my soft curds are no doubt caused by either the expired rennet or starter culture so I made a trip to the local home brew store and managed to pick up some liquid rennet but no luck with the starter culture. My thoughts are, that if I've managed to make it this far in the cheese making process there must be something still viable in my culture, so perhaps it can be revived? Maybe by making a mother culture with it? After all I still have 5 packets of the stuff, good for 8L of milk each! Or should I cut my losses and start afresh?

 

Kern

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Re: Way to "revive" expired Flora Danica?
« Reply #1 on: November 19, 2015, 10:43:25 PM »
Only a pH meter creating data for a pH versus time plot can really tell how well your FD is working (compare your FD with a fresh bag).  But, you can also get poor coagulation from using pasteurized and homogenized (P&H) milk or old rennet.   Since a small bag of Flora Danica costs about $8-10 from any number of cheese making supplies websites why waste time trying to salvage something that is almost valueless?  At the same time get some fresh rennet and use some "cream top" (non-homogenized) milk.  If you are serious about cheesemaking go one step further and get Caldwell's Mastering Artisan Cheesemaking and learn something about the craft.

Other that the rant above welcome to the Forum.  You'll find lots of Aussies and Kiwis hanging around here.   :) 

Trying to revive deceased culture is like trying to bring a dead cat back to life.   :P

Stinky

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Re: Way to "revive" expired Flora Danica?
« Reply #2 on: November 19, 2015, 11:13:09 PM »
Are you diluting your rennet in water with a few splashes of milk? Make sure to try that.

Offline Gregore

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Re: Way to "revive" expired Flora Danica?
« Reply #3 on: November 20, 2015, 03:01:03 AM »
One way to make an old starter culture work for cheese is to add about 1 teaspoon to a cup of milk and sit out on counter or in oven with light on
( as close to 90 f as possible)  until it just starts to separate whey from curd then add about a 1/4 cup  to 3 gallon of fresh milk  or 1% by weight .

If it takes longer than about 35 hrs or so then the culture is beyond hope and other critters could be causing the acid curve and the separation .

Offline Paisley

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Re: Way to "revive" expired Flora Danica?
« Reply #4 on: November 20, 2015, 10:52:23 PM »
Thanks for all the advice, much appreciated!

@Kern
You make a good point, no point trying to salvage something almost valueless. Can you recommend a good supplier shipping in Oz? Also, for making camembert am I best sticking with the FD or in your opinion is there another culture that might produce a nicer end product I could try?

I've also heard Caldwell's being referenced on this site quite a bit, thanks for the recommendation, I will be giving this a read before my next attempt.

@Stinky
I did mix rennet with a bit of cooled boiled water but not milk. Thanks, will remember that for next time :)

@Gregore
That sounds very do-able. Ultimately I think in the long run I'm probably better off getting new culture, but I've been bitten by the cheese making bug and I'm keen to make another batch asap! I might give this a go while I wait for the new culture to arrive :P Good to know there is something that I can try in a pinch, thanks!




Offline Schnecken Slayer

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Re: Way to "revive" expired Flora Danica?
« Reply #5 on: November 21, 2015, 01:03:18 AM »
Not sure what part of Oz you are in but here in Newcastle I get my supplies from the local Homebrew shops.
There is one online supplier who has a store in Maitland their website is here http://www.countrybrewer.com.au
-Bill
One day I will add something here...

Offline Paisley

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Re: Way to "revive" expired Flora Danica?
« Reply #6 on: November 21, 2015, 04:32:46 AM »
@Schnecken Slayer

Thanks for the link, I'm in New England NSW. Maitland is close in the scheme of things ;)

Offline Schnecken Slayer

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Re: Way to "revive" expired Flora Danica?
« Reply #7 on: November 21, 2015, 04:42:40 AM »
@Schnecken Slayer

Thanks for the link, I'm in New England NSW. Maitland is close in the scheme of things ;)
No problems.

I spent 7 years in Armidale working for HP. My patch extended from Armidale  out to Coonabaraban and up to Moree, I was doing 60,000km /year.  :o
-Bill
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Offline Andrew Marshallsay

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Re: Way to "revive" expired Flora Danica?
« Reply #8 on: November 21, 2015, 08:13:57 AM »
Hi Paisley.
I buy all my  cheese making supplies on line have also bought supplies from Country Brewer and have been quite happy with them.
The other source which I have used and would recommend is http://www.cheesemaking.com.au/
- Andrew

Stinky

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Re: Way to "revive" expired Flora Danica?
« Reply #9 on: November 21, 2015, 03:21:29 PM »
@Stinky
I did mix rennet with a bit of cooled boiled water but not milk. Thanks, will remember that for next time :)

Boiled water does the same thing, milk is just a sort of cheat to get rid of the chlorine. splash a few drops into the tap water and put rennet in. Once I started that, it made a huge difference. But if you did boil, that obviously isn't your problem, so you can strike that off your concerns list.

Kern

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Re: Way to "revive" expired Flora Danica?
« Reply #10 on: November 21, 2015, 05:58:45 PM »
@Kern
You make a good point, no point trying to salvage something almost valueless. Can you recommend a good supplier shipping in Oz? Also, for making camembert am I best sticking with the FD or in your opinion is there another culture that might produce a nicer end product I could try?

I've also heard Caldwell's being referenced on this site quite a bit, thanks for the recommendation, I will be giving this a read before my next attempt.

I like using FD for camembert cheese.  It offers good flavor in the ripe cheese but just as importantly it develops acid at a rate that nicely dovetails with the completed draining.  With cams you want the curd coming fully drained out of the mold at a pH of 4.7-4.8.  FD hits this at about 18-24 hours depending upon temperature at draining (~24C +/-).

Caldwell's Mastering Artisan Cheesemaking covers this nicely.

Offline Paisley

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Re: Way to "revive" expired Flora Danica?
« Reply #11 on: November 23, 2015, 01:32:16 AM »
I spent 7 years in Armidale working for HP. My patch extended from Armidale  out to Coonabaraban and up to Moree, I was doing 60,000km /year.  :o

Oh wow, yeah that's a fair bit of travelling! I'm in the south, just outside of Tamworth, been here coming on 2 years now. It's nice, but the summers are stinking hot! I think after this I'll be ready to live in Tassie :P

Offline Paisley

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Re: Way to "revive" expired Flora Danica?
« Reply #12 on: November 23, 2015, 01:36:03 AM »
I like using FD for camembert cheese.  It offers good flavor in the ripe cheese but just as importantly it develops acid at a rate that nicely dovetails with the completed draining.  With cams you want the curd coming fully drained out of the mold at a pH of 4.7-4.8.  FD hits this at about 18-24 hours depending upon temperature at draining (~24C +/-).

Caldwell's Mastering Artisan Cheesemaking covers this nicely.

Cheers Kern, just got it yesterday on the Kindle. Once I'm finished I'll be giving the camembert another go, hopefully will post my progress to the forums!

Kern

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Re: Way to "revive" expired Flora Danica?
« Reply #13 on: November 23, 2015, 06:44:35 PM »
Last week I made a two gallon batch of Camembert (four 110x30mm wheels) using the cheapest P&H milk I could get my hands on ($2.79 per gallon).  I used the cheap stuff mostly because I haven't flexed my "cheese muscles" for about six months and as an engineer I'm always tempted to "push the margins".  I had expected the usual problems with P&H milk so pumped both the calcium chloride and rennet to the suggested maximums (FD was the culture with PC and GC added to the 85F vat).  I got flocking in about ten minutes indicating a curd cut time of about an hour (6x).  I had to push the curd cut time out to 90 minutes for a reasonably clean break.  The cut curds looked good in the vat but at the first stir 15 minutes after cutting I got a lot of fractures.  The curds had set up a little better 15 minutes later but had more fracturing during hooping.  Draining was agonizing slow.  A pH of 4.85 was reached after 24 hours and as it had not changed since 18 hours I called it quits and rub salted at 2% of wheel weight.   

Into the cave they went at 90% RH and 55F.  For the next two days I had whey weeping at a decreasing rate.  I finally decided to place each wheel on a four fold paper towel and not flip for the next two days under the theory that the previous two days of flipping simply was sloshing the whey back and forth between the ends.  My idea was to use the towel to both attract and absorb the whey so that I could start growing the GC and PC before the rind dried too much.  Glory be!  By yesterday morning not only were the wheels now longer weeping but the sides and top looked like they had a fresh snowfall.  The GC was growing like mad!  I removed the towel and flipped the wheels.  There was little GC growth on the new top (former bottom next to the paper towel).  Not so today!  The GC was covering everything!  I love white fuzz!   8)

Taste wise these may not turn out well, who knows.  But they sure look good in the ripening box!  ;)