Author Topic: Lactobacillus Helveticus  (Read 12386 times)

Offline H-K-J

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Re: Lactobacillus Helveticus
« Reply #15 on: March 26, 2012, 04:22:13 PM »
I e-mailed my supplier and his reply;
"I would advise to use 1/8 TA and 1/16 LH since they each have different concentrations.  For Swiss or Emmental you need to add propionic bacteria."
I asked about a 4 to 5 gallon batch,what do you think about these amounts?
I guess, try and adjust, try and adjust.
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Sailor Con Queso

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Re: Lactobacillus Helveticus
« Reply #16 on: March 26, 2012, 05:23:17 PM »
FYI - "suppliers" are frequently wrong.

Sailor Con Queso

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Re: Lactobacillus Helveticus
« Reply #17 on: March 26, 2012, 05:45:21 PM »
LB - just a little clarification needed.

Are you talking about Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus or Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. lactis?

LB340 is just Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus and is described as as a thermo adjunct culture. Why?

LH100, which is what I normally use is Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus plus Lactobacillus helveticus

TM81 contains Streptococcus thermophilus and Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp bulgaricus but is described as being just for Italian types.

Thermo B contains S. thermophilus and L. bulgaricus, but I'm not sure if that is actually a shortcut for Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus. It seems if that is the case that this would be the best general culture for Swiss and Gruyeres.

linuxboy

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Re: Lactobacillus Helveticus
« Reply #18 on: March 26, 2012, 05:58:46 PM »
Quote
Are you talking about Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus or Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. lactis?
bulgaricus.
Quote
LB340 is just Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus and is described as as a thermo adjunct culture. Why?
Slower than TA. In thermo cheeses, in almost all of them, TA is the primary acidifier. Kind of like lactococcus is for mesos.
Quote
LH100, which is what I normally use is Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus plus Lactobacillus helveticus
This is a workable choice when used with TA like you do. If it keeps working for you and your acid curve is good, I say don't fix what's broken. If you sometimes experience texture or paste issues, or acidity is harder to control, then switch.

Quote
TM81 contains Streptococcus thermophilus and Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp bulgaricus but is described as being just for Italian types.
That's a classic mozz culture. It works fairly well in swiss.
Quote
Thermo B contains S. thermophilus and L. bulgaricus, but I'm not sure if that is actually a shortcut for Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus. It seems if that is the case that this would be the best general culture for Swiss and Gruyeres.
Yep, agree. Although gruyeres do need their FD or O+ some helveticus for flavor. Your beaufort blend looked decent, for example, so did Paul's, in the absence of whey starters.

Caseus

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Re: Lactobacillus Helveticus
« Reply #19 on: March 30, 2012, 02:48:59 AM »
Thermo B contains S. thermophilus and L. bulgaricus, but I'm not sure if that is actually a shortcut for Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus. It seems if that is the case that this would be the best general culture for Swiss and Gruyeres.

This is often used for yogurt too, isn't it?

Offline H-K-J

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Re: Lactobacillus Helveticus
« Reply #20 on: March 30, 2012, 03:54:58 PM »
FYI - "suppliers" are frequently wrong.
OK, I want to do a 4 gallon batch for Swiss my supplier suggests 1/8 TA and 1/16 LH and 1/10 PS, your recommendation's are???
I do not want to throw away that much milk because of a stupid mistake. :)
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Sailor Con Queso

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Re: Lactobacillus Helveticus
« Reply #21 on: March 30, 2012, 07:36:40 PM »
There is more than one way to skin a cat, so those combinations are not going to be a stupid mistake. And you will end up with an edible cheese. If you have a pH meter, just watch it so the pressed cheese doesn't get below 5.3-5.4. If you don't have a meter, I would tend to be conservative with the LH because of the latent acidity that it produces. Just remember that the LH will continue to produce acid during pressing.

Offline NimbinValley

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Re: Lactobacillus Helveticus
« Reply #22 on: May 03, 2012, 06:43:25 AM »
LH100, which is what I normally use is Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus plus Lactobacillus helveticus

Can I just confirm/correct one thing.  I am pretty sure LH100 has Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. lactis, not bulgaricus.  I checked in on a spec sheet.  It was an older Rhodia Foods sheet so Danisco may have since changed it.

Now, I have been doing some reading to try and understand the difference between Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus and lactis.  Any ideas?  Why would I choose one over the other?  All that I came up with is that bulgaricus has some advantages over helveticus in mozzarella since the cheese will be less prone to burning on a pizza.  But I couldn't find any info on why bulgaricus would be used instead of lactis in a cheese.

Any thoughts?

NVD

linuxboy

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Re: Lactobacillus Helveticus
« Reply #23 on: May 03, 2012, 09:54:09 AM »
Slightly different pH curves. Metabolism is very similar. IMHO, splitting hairs to choose between the two. IIRC, LH 100 is l delbrueckii lactis.

silverjam

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Re: Lactobacillus Helveticus
« Reply #24 on: May 07, 2012, 01:56:19 PM »
My comments are not so relevant but I thought I would mention that yes you can defiantly use Helveticus with Meso. I use Kazu Meso (MM 100 with Helveticus) regularly in my Brick Cheese, and I have used it in a really nice Tilsit. Also Feta Meso has Helveticus in it. My thoughts based purely on taste and not on science are that it adds a sharpness and firmness a little more than straight Meso II or MM 100. My Brick is definitely firmer using Kazu than standard Meso. Not sure why?

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Tomer1

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Re: Lactobacillus Helveticus
« Reply #25 on: May 07, 2012, 09:55:56 PM »
I believe in making mother cultures and using them as bulk.  You can easly devide them to 0.5% inoculation by wight and 1-1.5%.

Offline NimbinValley

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Re: Lactobacillus Helveticus
« Reply #26 on: May 08, 2012, 12:08:28 AM »
Hi Tomer1.

I am starting to think about using mother cultures.

I am wondering what you think are the pros and cons of mother cultures.

Thanks.

NVD

Caseus

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Re: Lactobacillus Helveticus
« Reply #27 on: May 08, 2012, 05:26:24 AM »
I've considered using mother cultures, but since I have only enough time and money to make at most one cheese per week, I've concluded that there is little that I would gain by making mother cultures.  I don't believe it is practical or especially economical to use mother cultures at very low levels of cheese production, particularly when making vastly dissimilar cheeses that require completely different cultures from one week to the next.

In a nutshell, using mother cultures can help you obtain greater consistency from make to make as compared to measuring small amounts of DVI freeze-dried culture since your innoculation will be more consistent than you can possibly manage by measuring the dry DVI culture in fractional teaspoons.  If you make a lot of cheese, the cultures will also cost you less in the long run.  They are optimally kept in the fridge and used within a week of making them.  They can save you about 20 to 30 minutes of ripening time per make if you use fresh, not frozen, mother culture.  Freezing them is possible, but it reduces the time savings somewhat during the make, and it affects cell viability and thus must be compensated for when pitching the culture. 

Here are the main reasons why I concluded that making mother cultures would not be beneficial for me, and in fact would impede my cheesemaking and needlessly increase the complexity:

- Although cultures can be frozen, and many people do, it is not optimum and would not be practical for me.  Freezing the culture impacts cell viability to some extent, which varies depending on how fast it is frozen, what temperature it is maintained at, and for how long.  This viability impact cannot be calculated exactly for a number of reasons, so experimentation is needed to determine proper pitching rate as a culture ages to ensure consistency from one make to the next.   Therefore, freezing a mother culture only introduces another confusing variable to my beginning cheesemaking efforts.
- A fresh culture has a very limited shelf-life, about one week for most consistent results.  Using the same fresh non-frozen culture for more than one make is not practical for me.  As a beginning cheesemaker, I am making a different type of cheese each time, often using completely different cultures.  Since I'm not repeating makes of the same cheese yet, consistency from make to make is not relevant, but culture viability over time is.  I cannot use all of a fresh non-frozen mother culture before it spoils or becomes non-viable.  Making the mother culture would waste my time and money.
- Saving 20 to 30 minutes of ripening time per make is inconsequential at my rate of cheesemaking.  Since I am unlikely to be able to use a mother culture more than once, the potential time saved in the make is more than negated by the amount of time I'll spend making the mother culture.

Here are some good threads that helped me understand mother cultures and why they are not a good fit for me, and probably not a good fit for most low volume beginning cheesemakers, despite the frequent recommendations to the contrary:

Consensus on propagating mother cultures from DVI packets?
Making Mother Cultures - A Photo Essay
Okay, My Head Is Spinning
Propagating Starter Cultures

Strangely enough, those threads tend to promote the idea that using mother cultures is an advantage for anyone.  But a careful reading of the threads clearly show that it is not.  Mother cultures make more sense if you are going to use the same fresh unfrozen one for more than one consecutive make over a very short period of time.  Otherwise, they just take more time than they save, waste ingredients due to spoilage, and introduce other variables that are difficult to compensate for, especially for a beginner like me. 

Offline NimbinValley

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Re: Lactobacillus Helveticus
« Reply #28 on: May 08, 2012, 07:41:01 AM »
What a great response.

Thanks very much.

NVD.

linuxboy

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Re: Lactobacillus Helveticus
« Reply #29 on: May 08, 2012, 02:14:25 PM »
Paul, always a workflow/time/cost tradeoff for cultures. Bulk cultures do speed up the make, but they take time to make and maintain. A useful middle ground is the primer approach where you culture a little from powder the night before and then dump it in with the morning milk. If it saves you time in the make (net gain for time saved from less ripening wait vs time it takes to prep and culture the milk), then I say go for it. Moneywise, it is cheaper, too.