There is a lot to unpack here and, please, I'm only going on what I read and seen. Faster Floc. times and applying the same floc factor to guage the cutting time will result in a much more open curd structure and will result in less moisture and fats being encapsulated within it. I am just paraphrasing my understanding of the process. The shorter multiplier, the mushier it will be and you wont achieve a clean break - it will have no supporting structure - minimal at best. I only have a rudimentary understanding of the curd formation process but the cleaving of the kappa protein from the casein minicule and when the enzyme in rennet cleaves the κ-Casein the net negative charge is reduced and they start clumping together. But the faster they do that the weaker the overall structure, it's a bit like over cooking concrete.
Yes you can make cheese from homogenized milk but the fat retention within the curd structure is not good. Homogenization, and it is totally a cosmetic thing, has several detrimental side effects for cheesemaking.
1. Homogenization is totally a cosmetic thing just to prevent the milk 'creaming', i.e. the fats slowly climbing together and rising to the top of the container.
2. The fat globules are literately squeezed through microscopic holes under immense pressure and are destroyed.
3. The natural carotene, that which make the cream appear yellowish is destroyed as well during pasteurization and lost.
4. Because the fat globules are now so very much smaller they are not as easily captured by the curd formation process.
5. Homogenized milks in the supermarket are nearly always adulterated with milks from vastly different batches and you have no idea how it was treated before being added to the product.
While we can repair some of the damage done by pasteurization -up to a point- by adding Calcium Chloride there is nothing we as cheesemakers can do with restoring the fats.
On the adding less culture, I don't definitively know but, the pH required to protect the cheese or setup for other moulds to do their thing probably wont be reached the culture is your flavor producing component as well as your acid producers.
This is a large topic I would like to continue at a greater depth.
