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GENERAL CHEESE MAKING BOARDS (Specific Cheese Making in Boards above) => INGREDIENTS - Lactic Acid Starter Cultures => Topic started by: Cheese Head on February 22, 2008, 05:41:12 PM
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Found this recipe from old 1999 Geocities website that doesn't appear to be maintained anymore as several links fail. Tried to get original poster cheezewizard's OK to posts here as worried that Geocities will delete account for non-use but his/her email account no work:
DIRECTIONS
- Start with 2 cups of very fresh milk. Heat it to 185F /85C on the range top or in a microwave. Do not heat to high or the cream will separate.
- Let the 2 cups of milk cool to at least 125F / 52C.
- Add one heaping table spoon of fresh live yogurt (either homemade or store bought "live and active" culture type like Dannon plain).
- Mix the yogurt into the milk thoroughly with a fork or a whisk.
- Keep the mixture at 110F / 44C for 8-10 hours until a firm yogurt has set. This can be done by using a double boiler on a low setting or by placing the inoculated milk into a small clean mason jar placed in a warm water bath. The bath can be kept warm by placing it on an electric range top at the lowest possible setting (so that "ON" light is just on). Monitor the temperature closely the first few times you do this and you will become a better judge of the temperature settings of your range top. This way with future cultures you can set the process up and not worry about it for 8-10 hours.
- Pour this culture into a full sized very clean ice cube tray and put into your freezer. As with all steps of cheesemaking, cleanliness is next to godliness.
- Once frozen, remove the cubes and put into a clean labeled sealed container or plastic freezer bags.
- The resulting ice cubes are each 1 oz of thermophilic starter.
- Add these cubes (thawed) to your recipes as required. The cubes will keep for about one month.
To make more starter simply thaw one cube and use it as the fresh yogurt used in step 3.
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Made this simple Thermophilic culture to make Mozzarella Cheese, very easy, posted pictures in separate thread here (http://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php?topic=67.0).
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I tried this today and after about 6 hours the milk separated into curds and whey. Will it still work or do I need to start over with different milk?
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The recipe sounds like how I make home-made yoghurt for everyday use, except that I don't bother to heat the milk, I just mix in the plain yogurt (about 100gm to 1 litre milk) in a sterilised tub and sit it in the yoghurt maker (which I think holds the temp at around 35 deg C - haven't ever measured it) for 8-10 hours then pop it into the fridge until I want to use it. It's normal for a good amount of whey to separate out, leaving a thicker, creamier yoghurt which is just what I like. The dog gets the whey, we get the creamy yoghurt. To use in cheese, you can mix the whey into the creamy bit.
I've used this homemade yoghurt to make a hard cheese (didn't realise at the time I was using a thermopilic culture!) and it turned out pretty good - it was my first attempt, when I had no 'proper' cultures.
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I know this is an old topic, hopefully someone will see this question!
When using this culture what quantity would equate to 1/4 teaspoon of dried culture from a sachet?
Thanks.
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When using yogurt cultures, I generally use 15 grams of yogurt per liter of milk. Since yogurt is essentially the same density as water, this works out to almost exactly 1 tablespoon per quart. I'm sure that's not an accident as I reverse engineered it from a few American recipes ;-). The actual amount you need is dependent upon the speed that the culture acidifies the milk, so you might need to tweak it. However, I've used this rule of thumb with several different starter cultures for which I maintain mother cultures and it's worked surprising well.
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Thank you, mikekchar.