Author Topic: What type of starter  (Read 2253 times)

Chicken man

  • Guest
What type of starter
« on: November 13, 2011, 12:52:48 PM »
Hi All

Haven't posted for some time, but is always good to read the topics here.
I recently built a 45 litre cheese vat and am looking forward to some hard Parmesans' etc.
Trouble is, i would like to start using commercial starters rather than Yoghurt and butter milk.
I don't know much about DVIs' or mother cultures, how they are incubated and used or, which type would be the most practical for 40 litres of milk!
Any advice or recommendations would be much appreciated.

Thanks
Ian

zenith1

  • Guest
Re: What type of starter
« Reply #1 on: November 13, 2011, 05:07:37 PM »
Hi Ian and welcome to the forum. With a vat like that you will need to step up your program with regard to starters. Your best bet would be as you surmised using a mother culture or DVI starter. That will grant you more consistency in your makes. The mother culture will give you more rapid acidification than the DVI. Use the search function here in the forum and you will find a huge amount of information regarding both DVI and mother cultures, their use and advantages/ disadvantages of both. You can also get all the information that you will need to make up your own recipe for Parmesan. Good luck!

smilingcalico

  • Guest
Re: What type of starter
« Reply #2 on: November 13, 2011, 06:14:29 PM »
The Danlac website is pretty easy to navigate and has a section to choose which cheese you'd like to make, then lists the starters available for it.  You can buy from the site, but you might also like to price shop, though all the cultures from different suppliers seem pretty consistent.  There is one little math trick to the DVI cultures from Danisco, which is, the package will say something like 125 DCU (Danisco Culture Unit).  This package will acidify 1250 liters of milk (basically 1 DCU will acidify 10 liters of milk).  Take the package weight, which is printed on the bag, divide it by 1250, and now you know how many grams of culture per liter that you need.  Hang on, there's one last step.  Finally, multiply that gram per liter by the amount of milk you are using, and now you know exactly how much culture to weigh out.  It may seem a little tricky, but it is easy once you do it a few times (I do it three times a week for 500+ liters).  You could easily create a spreadsheet and plug in the numbers to have it calculate for you. 
  Finally, Sailor posted a great thread on making mother cultures from DVI cultures. I personally don't do this for various reasons, but it'll be a money saver on cultures!
Sorry for not posting any links, I'm doing this on my phone with limited time.  If you have any more  questions ask away.

Chicken man

  • Guest
Re: What type of starter
« Reply #3 on: November 14, 2011, 12:38:39 PM »
Thanks to both of you!!
I like the idea of using the direct set straight up, but I'm curious to know how much extra time it would add using DVI as opposed to mother culture?

Chicken man

  • Guest
Re: What type of starter
« Reply #4 on: November 14, 2011, 12:42:30 PM »
PS
I'm a sheet metal worker by trade and when i get my vat up and running i'll post some pics.
Is very simple and i got the inspiration from the food warmer vat posted here by another cheesy member!!
Cheers