My First Attempt at Bitto

[DeejayDebi]

TM81 (Streptococcus salivarius, subsp. thermophilus and Lactobacillus delbrueckii, subsp. bulgaricus) is used for fast acidification. Good in montasio mozzarella or cheeses with a firm and dry but stretchy texture. It gives you chewy texture somewhat like an Edam or Gouda but drier and stronger tasting like an young aged Provelone. God I can't describe cheese worth a darned!

[FRANCOIS]

Deb,
I could be wrong here, but I'm pretty sure Lactobacillus delbrueckii, subsp. bulgaricus isn't an acidifier at all.  It's a ripening culture to works on texture and aroma.  Thermophilus isn't the best acidifier in the world, which is why it's normally mixed with a meso, unless it's the same strain as in TA061, which is't half bad.  Bottom line, I am guessing, if it works for you go with it.

[linuxboy]

You're right Francois, bulgaricus is typically a yogurt culture. It only starts growing seriously after pH is around 5.6, and by then the cheese should be in the press or close to it. In cheese, it's used more for the proteolytic qualities because it works on specific peptide chains.

[DeejayDebi]

I use alot of TA 61 with LH 100. TheTM 81 one was recommended by Danlac for Montasio so I thought I'd try it on the Bitto. We will see. I like the intial texture definately had tha stretchy feel to it. The new curds weren't bad albeit not salted yet.

[goatherdess]

Mill "to the size of rice". Is that even possible? I use a whisk for really small curds, but I don't want to get overly aggressive. I get them small but nowhere near "rice size". What's the trick?

Trick is to beat the curd like crazy and use a whisk with sharp, thin wire. Your whey will wind up being slightly white from the loss of solids, but that's the cheese style. If you look at some alpine style cheese videos, you'll see the whey is white from the curd cutting. Same with parmesan.

I would just like to add that it also depends on how you cut the curd. For a gently-stirred brick I cut it at 3/4" intervals, but for a Parm I cut the curd at 1/4" intervals. Then stir like crazy with a cheese spoon. The first few minutes of the stir are the most important, because after a while of being stirred in the whey they firm up and won't get any smaller.

[DeejayDebi]

Good point and as these are rice sized pieces anyway.

Sure is smelling great at this point.