Author Topic: Making mesophilic mother culture  (Read 1438 times)

retiredtrucker

  • Guest
Making mesophilic mother culture
« on: August 18, 2017, 03:06:57 PM »
Hello to all, I am new to the forum as well as a new cheese maker. I have a question to go along with one posted recently, can I use whey from a previous batch of cheese to produce a mother with? Where I live,Costa Rica, they do produce cheese but almost totally queso fresco and cultures are not available except thru ebay or the like. I have purchased cultures from the UK which are cheaper than ordering from US as the shipping is much less and considerably quicker. I have access to fresh raw milk, although the fat level is not what we could get in Canada. Also would like to know if pasteurizing before inoculating is a wise idea.
Thank You in advance for all your help and hope to be a regular reader and poster.
 

Offline FooKayaks2

  • Medium Cheese
  • ***
  • Location: Melbourne
  • Posts: 57
  • Cheeses: 1
  • Default personal text
Re: Making mesophilic mother culture
« Reply #1 on: August 18, 2017, 08:37:28 PM »
Hi retiredtrucker

Welcome to the forum.

I would recommend reading he below thread on making mother http://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,5165.0.html

This thread gives a great explanation of the process. I am assuming that you would still like to use commercial cultures for cheese making?

There are a few schools of thought on raw milk, in the end it is a personnel decision.
If you have a clean and reliable source of raw milk you trust by all means use that.
A lot of people still pasteurise though. The pasteurisation method that we can easily use as home cheese makers is at a lower temperature than can occur commercially. Home is generally 63 degrees for 30 minutes where as commercially they pasteurise at a higher temperature for only 15s. The lower temperature pasteurisation will end up being gentler on the milk.

good luck
Mathew

retiredtrucker

  • Guest
Re: Making mesophilic mother culture
« Reply #2 on: August 18, 2017, 10:14:19 PM »
Hey thanks for the link. Most of that was way over my head. I guess that proves how much of a nube I am. As far as raw milk and store bought goes most of the store bought milk is heated to death ,it lasts for ever in the refri before it goes truly bad, therefore I will use fresh raw milk and pasteurize myself.