Author Topic: DIY Meso Culture Question  (Read 3991 times)

ryanmonahan

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DIY Meso Culture Question
« on: January 18, 2018, 09:48:45 PM »
I thought I would see if I could isolate a culture from one of my favourite cheddars, so I took a bit of 2% milk I had and re-pasturized it... then I added a few tablespoons of finely grated cheese and shook it up really good in a sterilized mason jar. I left it in a warm-water bath for about 24 hrs. After about 18hrs it had indeed ripened and was the consistancy of thin yogurt. But by this morning around 24hrs, it had completely separated and the curd settled to the bottom and weigh sitting on top. Very pleasant sweet aroma.

Do you think i could use this to start off some cheddars? Wasn't expecting it to separate like that.

Offline Andrew Marshallsay

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Re: DIY Meso Culture Question
« Reply #1 on: January 18, 2018, 11:32:57 PM »
I have never used mother cultures, but everything that I have read advises against it for the home cheesemaker. The main concerns are around contamination and consistency, with such cultures tending to change in composition over time.
There are some surface ripening cultures, such as B Linens, P Candidum and P Roquefortii which can be successfully grown from a sample of commercial cheese. You  need to consider though, that these are salt tolerant, whereas the ripening cultures which you want to extract from your cheddar are not. That is why the cheddar was salted during manufacture: to stop the culture from working.
The culture which you have extracted from the cheddar may look promising but what organisms are in there? For starters, pasteurisation does not kill off all of the organisms in the milk, otherwise it would never go off.
Sorry to be a wet blanket. Your culture may work but it's not a risk I'd take.
- Andrew

RayJ

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Re: DIY Meso Culture Question
« Reply #2 on: January 19, 2018, 01:02:03 AM »
I would use it. It likely won't result in the same cheese as you cultured with but you never know it might be really good. In a cheddar if it does give you issues you should end up with something un appetizing or the cheese will blow. If you use that culture for many cheeses you will likely end up with phage issues over time if you aren't rotating cultures. Other than that I would try it and embrace the adventure of it!

ryanmonahan

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Re: DIY Meso Culture Question
« Reply #3 on: January 19, 2018, 04:26:03 PM »
I’m going to give it a go... I’ll do a small 1 or 2lb wheel and see what happens! Keep y’all posted.

I have successfully used a bit of danish blue from the grocery store to successfully make a shropshire blue style. So I’m all set to try!