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GENERAL CHEESE MAKING BOARDS (Specific Cheese Making in Boards above) => STANDARD METHODS - Forming Cheese => Topic started by: Laurels Crown on August 22, 2012, 03:39:12 AM

Title: After Forming, Swelling/Spongy - Yeast or Coliform Problem?
Post by: Laurels Crown on August 22, 2012, 03:39:12 AM
Help!  Just when I think I have resolved the problem, it happens again - 5 batches tossed since the end of July! Goes into the mold fine, the next morning - spongy rising cheese (blue stilton, cheddar, bel paese, variety of DVI cultures)

Here's the rundown:
1. I use vat pasteurized milk from an organic grassfed dairy.  I purchase in one gallon plastic jugs.  I am making cheese at home.
2. Recently purchased a commercial refrigerator as my milk storage refrigerator seemed to have temp issues and I thought this might be creating a problem, this didn't solve the inflation problem.
3. Moved all wine fermentation from basement to garage despite the fact the wine storage had no return air cross with the rest of the house, didn't solve the inflation problem. There is no air crossover between the garage and the house.
4. After each failure - sanitized all counter spaces with clorox cleanup, mopped the floors with same.
5.I always sanitize all of my equipment with star-san or sterilite tabs before making (obsessive personality is a wonderful thing in a cheesemaker).
6. I have not made bread since Christmas.

 I suspect it is a yeast problem but I can't seem to get rid of it.  Our temperatures here have been high 95 to 105 but I live in a very low humidity area.  Lots of wind this year but I haven't had windows open due to central air with temp at 72.  Doors open and close on occasion for the dogs.

I have some fruit/veggies stored with the milk jugs in the commercial fridge.  The cheese starts out looking great but by morning could be used to wash dishes!

What have I missed?  I am tearing my hair out (but not around the cheese  :-\) 
Thanks for any help!
Title: Re: After Forming, Swelling/Spongy - Yeast or Coliform Problem?
Post by: iratherfly on August 22, 2012, 06:05:46 AM
Can you post a photo?

Quick ideas:
- Dog dandruff in the vicinity
- Coliform contamination
- Traces of Star-San in your own equipment
- Cross contamination comes from the central AC

Have you tries switching milk or cultures? If not:
- The issue could be from the farmer: Traces of udder-sanitizing substance. Antibiotics in the cow's diet. Traces of sanitizer in the bottling equipment
- If this happens with the same culture sachet, the sachet itself may be contaminated
- Are you sure the cows were fed only grass?

Are you using proper food-grade equipment? (No construction grade home-made PVC moulds or other hacks. You stir and cut curd with stainless steel utensils, etc.)
Title: Re: After Forming, Swelling/Spongy - Yeast or Coliform Problem?
Post by: Laurels Crown on August 23, 2012, 04:35:19 AM
Well, I have attached photos - I can't seem to find directions on how to insert a photo into my reply..........

Milk - I have been cheesemaking with this milk since January.  End of July is the first time I have had issues with this swelling.
Cultures - it has occurred with a variety of different cultures, even with same cultures that come from different packaging.
Certified Organic- No antibiotics, yes grassfed and they do not bring in hay, they raise their own. Vat pasteurized with no reports of any milk issues.
All of my equipment is proper food grade.

I don't have enough understanding of coliform contamination to know what that really looks like but this spongy cheese does not have a "horrendous" odor.

Cross contamination from AC?  Were you thinking of the wine or just moving air about in general?
Dog Dandruff in the vicinity - well, dogs are in the house so may a good sterilization is in order for them  :D

Thanks for the help!
Title: Re: After Forming, Swelling/Spongy - Yeast or Coliform Problem?
Post by: Laurels Crown on August 23, 2012, 04:36:24 AM
OK - so when I attach it inserts the photo...............
Title: Re: After Forming, Swelling/Spongy - Yeast or Coliform Problem?
Post by: smilingcalico on August 23, 2012, 05:00:55 AM
It does resemble coliform bacteria infection.  This stuff can be in the environment though.  The cheese wouldn't smell horrendous, but definitely an off odor.  I have a hard time putting words on it.  What type of environment do you live in?  Country? I understand that if an animal eats the bacteria, spores can end up in the milk.  Remember, pasteurizing doesn't kill all the stuff in it, though it does do a damn fine job.  There might be enough remaining in it to allow for regeneration/infection.
Title: Re: After Forming, Swelling/Spongy - Yeast or Coliform Problem?
Post by: Laurels Crown on August 23, 2012, 06:59:13 AM
The area I live in would be categorized as "small city" residential. Though I am an "edible landscape" person so on my large lot I have gardens, compost and perennial fruit (apricots, plums, grapes, apples,pears, raspberries, hops).  The only thing different outdoors is some "logging"  we did in July, cutting out some cedar trees and a diseased pie cherry tree (I am in eastern Washington btw).

Is it possible to easily test for coliform to figure out the potential contamination timeframe i.e. after pasteurization, during make?

Thanks for your help!
Title: Re: After Forming, Swelling/Spongy - Yeast or Coliform Problem?
Post by: george on August 23, 2012, 09:10:27 AM
I have some fruit/veggies stored with the milk jugs in the commercial fridge.

I'm not sure when this was, sometime in the past few months, but I remember LB posting something about there being more yeasts floating around in the air since fruit was ripening and so the yeasts had more sugars to eat - or something to that effect.  The big part being more yeasts in summer-ish time.  Since you have all those fruit trees and fruit co-habitating with the milk and cheese, maybe that's where it's coming from?  (Assuming it really is yeast.)  Try separating them and sanitizing the fridge again?
Title: Re: After Forming, Swelling/Spongy - Yeast or Coliform Problem?
Post by: MrsKK on August 23, 2012, 01:53:58 PM
I recommend making an experimental batch of cheese, re-pasturizing the milk at the beginning of the make.  If that works, you may have found a solution.  If not, you won't be set back too much.
Title: Re: After Forming, Swelling/Spongy - Yeast or Coliform Problem?
Post by: linuxboy on August 23, 2012, 02:46:10 PM
I like Karen's idea. Re-pasteurize a small batch to see if that takes care of it, to try and eliminate the milk as the source.
Title: Re: After Forming, Swelling/Spongy - Yeast or Coliform Problem?
Post by: Laurels Crown on August 23, 2012, 03:15:34 PM
Thanks folks!
I will give these great suggestions a try.  I appreciate everyone taking the time o problem solve for me. Hopefully I will be up and "aging" again in no time!!!  :-*
Title: Re: After Forming, Swelling/Spongy - Yeast or Coliform Problem?
Post by: Sailor Con Queso on August 23, 2012, 04:27:38 PM
To me this looks like a coliform infection. Yeast smell yeasty like bread. Coliforms smell horrendous (fecal) as you have described.

IMHO this does not happen from a casual airborne contamination. The results are obviously dramatic and will not happen from just a few bacteria or yeast getting into the milk. Airborne contamination in your kitchen is what I call "sub-clinical" because there just aren't enough bad organisms to become dominant that quickly. Bacteria and yeast are everywhere, and you will almost always have tiny levels of contamination. One of the goals in cheesemaking is for the starter bacteria to dominate and overwhelm the contaminants.

So that being said, you obviously need to isolate the problem. Without being there and watching your make it's impossible to say with any degree of certainty, but here are some things to consider.

1- "Certified Organic" has nothing to do with sanitary practices. If there are coliforms in the milk, it's because of poor (unsanitary) procedures by the dairy farmer. Discuss this with your farmer. FYI - this is why raw milk gets such a bad rap. It's NOT the milk, it's the collection and handling.

2- The vat pasteurization may be inadequate. Ironically, this may never show up with liquid milk consumption, because the milk is at refrigeration temperatures. But inadequate pasteurization can become a real problem in a warm cheesemaking environment. Talk to them about the time and temperature, and how quickly they cool the milk afterwards.

3- Milk should never go above around 40-41F including when you are transporting it. Don't allow it to warm up before you start a make. Warm milk will allow bacteria to grow. Bacteria double their population every 20 minutes under proper conditions, so it doesn't take long for bad stuff to get a foothold.

4- When heating your milk for a make, don't XXXXX foot around. Heat reasonable quickly and add your starter before other stuff starts to grow.

There are other things to consider, but the problem lies in your milk, not from minor contamination in your kitchen.
Title: Re: After Forming, Swelling/Spongy - Yeast or Coliform Problem?
Post by: Laurels Crown on August 23, 2012, 04:52:45 PM
Sailor,
Thanks for the info-just to clarify, my comment was that it did NOT have a horrendous odor.  The odor is kind of undefinable. You have raised several good points, especially with the heating. I will speed up the to culture temp-i make in four gallon batches in a bain Marie and I had set to warm slowly. I will also backtracked on these other solutions.

Thanks for your help!
Title: Re: After Forming, Swelling/Spongy - Yeast or Coliform Problem?
Post by: iratherfly on August 24, 2012, 07:31:53 AM
I agree with Karen's idea too. re-pasteurize to see if this problem occurs before or after you open your milk.
Alternatively, you can also just get milk from another source and see what happens.

This looks like coliform to me and yes, you mentioned central AC so it is definitely possible that id brings this contamination into your sanitized area. The dogs may have something to do with it so again, you can eliminate the environmental aspect by trying to make this cheese with the same milk and cultures -at a friend's house. See what happens then. At the very least, it would tell you where to look.

as Sailor brought up some excellent points. Keeping the milk chilled during transportation is important. Do not keep it on the counter for too long either. You need to heat it up for cheesemaking gently, however if you take too much time, the milk will spend too much time in the median temperature where coliform grow.  Same goes for improper pasteurization (either not bringing milk to proper heat or not chilling it fast enough). Organic has nothing to do with sanitation standards and it's not just being unsanitary, it's also using harsh udder and equipment detergents/cleaners/disinfectants and not assure that they don't taint your milk. These can seriously disturb the bacterial protection balance in your milk as well as the inoculation success during cheesemaking.

I have experienced coliform inoculation in the past. It doesn't have to have bad odor. It can smell yeasty and sweet.
Title: Re: After Forming, Swelling/Spongy - Yeast or Coliform Problem?
Post by: Annie on August 28, 2012, 04:01:59 PM
I had this problem a few times, and I think it was from being too close to the fruit. See all the white powdery stuff on the grapes? That's yeast! And there is yeast on other fruits as well, just not as visible.

After that, I kept the fruit very separated from the milk, and have only had problems once or twice since then, and once was when my cow was getting mastitis, so the milk was off.

We just keep the fruit covered with napkins and kitchen towels on a table in the kitchen which I keep the milk several feet away from. If I run out of counter space, I put the milk in the dining room rather than on the table with the fruit on it.
Title: Re: After Forming, Swelling/Spongy - Yeast or Coliform Problem?
Post by: iratherfly on August 29, 2012, 06:04:46 AM
I don't think it's fruit yeast (Oidium).  Fruit yeasts are more a contamination and annoyance with destroying cheese rind flora.  They seldom can grow crazy on acidic fresh cheese and take over in a few hours.
Title: Re: After Forming, Swelling/Spongy - Yeast or Coliform Problem?
Post by: Laurels Crown on August 29, 2012, 04:25:39 PM
Hi folks,
I really appreciate everyone who has weighed in on my dilemma.  I am pleased to report I have made 16 lbs of cheese (stilton, bel paese, cheddar) and all batches are EXCELLENT!

My number one change has been decreasing the time to bring it to temperature before adding the cultures.  I am taking careful stock of all the other suggestions to extra ensure success but so far - so good.

Thanks for the help - you saved my sanity (and my hair)  :D
Title: Re: After Forming, Swelling/Spongy - Yeast or Coliform Problem?
Post by: BobE102330 on August 29, 2012, 06:07:59 PM
I haven't had this issue, but how quickly should one raise the temperature up to culturing temperature?  I can see I got lucky leaving my milk out while sterilizing, but is 3 degrees or so per 5 minutes fast enough to usually preclude problems?   I am using pasteurized milk, so it probably isn't as much of an issue as with fresh milk, but I want to be safe once I get fresh.  Thanks.
Title: Re: After Forming, Swelling/Spongy - Yeast or Coliform Problem?
Post by: Sailor Con Queso on August 29, 2012, 10:02:24 PM
When I start heating my milk, I want it to be ready to go in no more than 45 minutes. So if I am going from cold milk at 36F to 86F, that's 50 degrees in 45 minutes. At 3 degrees per 5 minutes, that would take you 83 minutes to get to ripening temperature. I would consider that too slow and could allow contaminants to begin to multiply. Figure that 1/2 of that time is within a range where the bacteria are really active, so you have over 40 minutes of time for contaminants to multiply. Bacteria double their population every 20 minutes, so the contaminants would increase at least 4 fold during that time.
Title: Re: After Forming, Swelling/Spongy - Yeast or Coliform Problem?
Post by: BobE102330 on August 30, 2012, 12:09:06 AM
Thanks Sailor.  A cheese to you!
Title: Re: After Forming, Swelling/Spongy - Yeast or Coliform Problem?
Post by: Laurels Crown on August 30, 2012, 12:42:27 AM
At the risk of a dumb question......so, I have eliminated the spongy cheese by shortening the warm up time and the cheese will look great BUT would the cheese be considered "contaminated" if I were to continue using the same milk source(assuming they continued whatever they were doing) or do the cheese cultures overcome the other bacteria if growing properly?  I am thinking from a commercial standpoint.

I hope that question makes sense......
Title: Re: After Forming, Swelling/Spongy - Yeast or Coliform Problem?
Post by: iratherfly on August 30, 2012, 05:07:01 AM
Well, you always want to use the best and cleanest milk possible and if you think commercially - you would test the milk and look the the numbers to make sure it meets your standards.

It is very possible that the long heat-up cycle gave the upper hand to existing bacteria which out-competed your inoculated cultures. Remember that pathogens love un-acidic environment and body-like temperatures. Add the food (lactose) to it and you are giving them a highway for multiplying.

You can help preventing it with shortning heating stage, pre-inoculation the milk, or switching strains of your starter culture (for example if you are using MA4001, switch to MA4002, or if you use Flora Danica, change to Aroma B or Probat 222). Other than that, if you are using raw milk you should always make sure it is regulated and tested.
Title: Re: After Forming, Swelling/Spongy - Yeast or Coliform Problem?
Post by: CdnMorganGal on September 13, 2012, 03:20:04 AM
How would switching from MA4001 to MA4002 help?

What is pre-inoculating the milk?

In my case, I am working with raw milk.

Thank you.
Title: Re: After Forming, Swelling/Spongy - Yeast or Coliform Problem?
Post by: iratherfly on September 13, 2012, 04:33:36 AM
Some cultures are made to do identical work but they have different strains of the same species. They have similar name - only the last digit is different.  Some examples are MA4000, MA4001, MA4002, or MM100, MM101, MM103, TA50, TA51 to 56, TA60 to 62, LBC 81 to 82, MA11 to 19, etc.

It usually is no concern for the home cheesemaker, but creameries rotate cultures regularly to prevent phage: If something attacks a given strain of culture, when they switch to the next number in the series that phage will not know how to attack a totally new strain so it will die off and disappear. The cheese however will be exactly the same.

It's just like how Influenza get smart on us. We develop immunity to one strain and then it switches the strain on us and we get the flu, even though we got a flu shot, right? Next season the new shot will outsmart that influenza strain.  In the case of cheese, the culture needs to behave like that smart influenza. Does that make sense?

Pre inoculating is a technique to propagate some lactic bacterium slowly in pasteurized milk, to grow back a few off the flavor elements that were lost during pasteurization. When you do that, you also create a competition of species which could have the benefit of defeating or weakening some pathogens.
Title: Re: After Forming, Swelling/Spongy - Yeast or Coliform Problem?
Post by: DavidCNX on July 16, 2017, 12:21:05 AM
Hi .... I am getting this problem too... making blue cheese.... the final results are fine, edible and tasty.
My neighbout and I both made the same Forme d'Ambert cheese over the weekend
Same Milk, same culture, different houses. His was fine - mine is spongy! I bleached everything to within an inch of his life.
The main difference was that I was making bread at the same time, both sour dough (wild yeasts)
and normal commercial yeast bread.

The cheese smells and tastes fine, just spongy and expanding in the mold.

I'm guessing that it's harmless yeast contamination.....

Oh and btw, he has 4 indoor dogs and I have 2 outdoer dogs.... both made the cheese indoors.

Last week I made Camemberts, outside, and no problem, but as it's such a wet cheese to start with, maybe it didn't show up!

Title: Re: After Forming, Swelling/Spongy - Yeast or Coliform Problem?
Post by: 5ittingduck on July 16, 2017, 02:42:57 AM
I would be blaming the breadmaking.
It's not wise to mix the two endeavours!
Title: Re: After Forming, Swelling/Spongy - Yeast or Coliform Problem?
Post by: Gregore on July 16, 2017, 04:21:35 AM
I never make. Cheese  in the kitchen , that is my wife's yeasty domain. Kombucha , bread and yogurt are all made in there . So my cheese is made in the dining room or a spare bedroom.  I use a induction heater to warm the milk.
Title: Re: After Forming, Swelling/Spongy - Yeast or Coliform Problem?
Post by: DavidCNX on July 17, 2017, 11:10:30 AM
OK so the cheese has sunk again today.... just like overproofed bred. Still smells just like cheese, no other detectable odours (Not like the time I made the mistake of disinfecting everything with Dettol!)....

I make my cams outside, not sure why I don't with the blue, maybe trying to avoid flies at the popcorn stage!... Maybe I didn't have anyone to help me move my 8 gallon pot outside... I do live in the tropics, so keeping it all warm is only a problem for early morning a few weeks in the middle of winter :)

I've remembered why I make the blue indoors.... it's so I can watch TV whilst I'm doing all that stirring!
Title: Re: After Forming, Swelling/Spongy - Yeast or Coliform Problem?
Post by: AnnDee on July 17, 2017, 01:03:52 PM
Do you, by any chance, use LM culture on it? Like LM57?
Title: Re: After Forming, Swelling/Spongy - Yeast or Coliform Problem?
Post by: DavidCNX on July 17, 2017, 01:19:39 PM
Flora Danica.....