Kefir starter - very slow

[RobinsonN]

Hi from London,

Yesterday, I started making a (sort-of) Caerphilly with 12L of pasteurised jersey milk, and 6L raw goat's milk. 

After reading some of David Asher's book The Art of Natural Cheesemaking, I decided to use 1 cup of milk kefir as a starter. 

After several hours of waiting for the acidity to develop, and going through the texturing steps, the PH had only developed to 6.45, whereas I would have expected it to be in the 5.4 region.  So, I decided to press and wait for the acidity to develop before brining, rather than milling and salting as usual.

Now it is 24 hours after rennet, and the PH is 5.6.  My plan is to wait until the PH is 5.4, then brine for 16 hours.

Does anyone have any comments about this approach?  Am I wasting my time!?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Best wishes,
Neil

[Kern]

Can you provide an update on this cheese?   

[RobinsonN]

I brined the cheese for 24 hours, and upon removing from the brine, noticed that it had swelled-up.  I read that early blowing can result from poor acid development, so no real surprises there… I cut it open a few days later, and there were countless small holes.  I discarded! 

I have since tried to make the same cheese, using more kefir and some MA4001, and the acidity developed fairly quickly. It’s now resting in the ‘cave’, and all appears ok.  I intend to age it for a few more weeks, and I will post the results…

[Kern]

Thanks for the update.  Post some photos if you can after you cut it.

[Savu]

In his book David Asher says to use at least 2 day old kefir, from my experience making Cams is that the kefir starter is better being at least a week old, his kefir is probably better being made with raw milk, which I don't have, so my thoughts were to let the bugs multiply longer, just like making a yeast starter in homebrew making.
Anyway just a thought that might be your problem with acidity not dropping fast enough, not enough active ingredient!

[MarcG]

For anyone coming across this thread in a search:  I had a similar problem with my first few tries at the Mason Jar Marcellin recipe and it was resolved by adding more "starter": a longer-fermented batch of kefir (3 days) with a nice set of bacteria and yeast on the top, a larger quantity of it (1/2 cup instead of the recommended 60ml), and I threw in some kefir grains as well for good luck.

Marc