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Author Topic: What brand of store bought milk have you had good luck with?  (Read 3896 times)

mgable

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What brand of store bought milk have you had good luck with?
« on: August 30, 2009, 08:21:36 PM »
I am just getting started in the cheese making hobby and have tried 2 different brands of milk prairie farms and Sam's club milk. I Have only made 2 cheeses so far and my time to get a clean break is longer than the recipes all called for and the curds seem to break up easily. I am wondering if I should try other brands of store bought milk, add a little more rennet or let the milk ripen longer? I don't have a pH meter yet so I am a little limited right now. The other brands of milk available in my area are walmart brand  country fresh , and meijer brand. That I know of so far. I am not looking to spend a lot on the milk so I don't really want to go organic. Any suggestions?
                                                                                                     Mark
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Offline DeejayDebi

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Re: What brand of store bought milk have you had good luck with?
« Reply #1 on: August 30, 2009, 08:32:15 PM »
I have used WalMart milk a few times now and although it will make cheese the curds are not as firm and the taste is more like low fat milk. I am not sure why but even the whole milk seems wimpier than say Hood or some other name brand.
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zenith1

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Re: What brand of store bought milk have you had good luck with?
« Reply #2 on: August 30, 2009, 10:33:30 PM »
I don't know what area you live in, but here in NY if I have to you a commercial milk I have had good success with both crowley's, and Stewart's brands.
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Cheese Head

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Re: What brand of store bought milk have you had good luck with?
« Reply #3 on: August 31, 2009, 12:44:33 AM »
Mark, I buy whole past & homogenized cow's milk from whoever is cheapest here in Houston TX. Sometimes Kroger, sometimes HEB, sometimes Randalls (Safeway I believe) cheapest brands and sometimes SamsClub, and in general never have a poor curd set unless I do something dumb.

Rennet times are guidelines only and depends on several factors, plus curds when freshly cut are very fragile, and even when cooking.

Can you tell us a little more about your method, ie what temp milk when add starter, what starter culture, how add, do you add CaCl2, how long before adding rennet, what rennet type and how stored, how add rennet, time to cut, healing time after cut etc? Just in case it's your method or other ingredients rather than the milk.

John
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mgable

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Re: What brand of store bought milk have you had good luck with?
« Reply #4 on: August 31, 2009, 07:47:07 AM »
I warm milk to 86 degrees add starter culture (last one was 1/4 tsp.mesoII and 1/4 tsp.thermoB from Abiasa diluted in 1/4 cup distilled water) wait 45 min. and add rennet yes I am using calcium chloride. I have been using half of a bioren tablet in 2 gallons of milk diluted in 1/4 cup cool distilled water.took about 1 and 1/4 hours to get a clean break  but would like the curds to be firmer and less fragile. maybe I should check my thermometer to see if it is accurate (using a digital one)
             Mark
« Last Edit: August 31, 2009, 07:56:22 AM by mgable »
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Cheese Head

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Re: What brand of store bought milk have you had good luck with?
« Reply #5 on: August 31, 2009, 10:34:01 AM »
Mark, thanks, OK that all looks good.

The recommended operating range of rennet is 86-96F/30-36C, so you are at the bottom end and setting will take longer, you could try warmer, which will speed up the set.

BioRen is made by the Hundsbichler GmBH company in Austria, and they started the BioRen product line in 2004 with one of it's formats being tablets. But I could only find this info on their tablets which does say 1 tablet will set 20 liters (5.26 US gallons).

Most rennet is recommended to be stored in fridge cold temperatures, otherwise degrades.

The reason I'm honing in on the tablets, is that if you search this forum from the homepage then there are several posts with people having success, mostly with Junket Brand tablet rennet and poor results with other brands of tablet rennet, one here, another here.

I'm currently using up my powdered CHR Hansen brand rennet that sadly I bought off of eBay and have no information on it's age or how kept before me. I find that with it I need to use about 1.5 times the recommended dose to get a good set. So maybe increasing your dosage will also help.

So in summary, you are getting a curd set but not strong/quick enough, I'd raise temp, raise rennet dosage rate to 3/4 tablet for 2 US gallons, and once used up, order/buy some liquid rennet.

Good luck!
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siegfriedw

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Re: What brand of store bought milk have you had good luck with?
« Reply #6 on: September 09, 2009, 08:58:13 PM »
On any of the commercial milks there are going to be a lot of variables depending on which farm it ultimately came from. More importantly is probably what happens from the time it leaves the processing facility until it gets to the cooler at the store  - was it left out on the loading dock, how long etc.

If I had to buy my own milk from a store  Id look for the most recent bottle - the one with the latest "expiry date" in the cooler at the time of purchase..
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