Whey, using as starter culture

[woodsman]

Hello everyone,

This is my first post so please forgive me if this subject has already been discussed here to satisfy my curiosity. I've searched google and this forum and so far I didn't find anything specific enough to move beyond trying an experiment with a very small batch of milk.

My questions are:

Has anyone already tried experimenting with this?
Can whey be kept refrigerated for a week and used to inoculate milk?
Would diluted rennet present in whey influence ripening by starting to curdle milk earlier then it would otherwise?

I've also found this interesting article with some info, but alas no recipe
Microbiology of starter cultures

...

Modern starter cultures have developed from the practice of retaining small quantities of whey or cream from the successful manufacture of a fermented product on a previous day and using this as the inoculum or starter for the preceding day’s production. This practice has been called various names but the term 'back-slopping' is used widely.

...

Artisanal cultures are of significant scientific and technological interest. Natural whey starters, despite their unpredictable performance, are still used extensively, for example, in the manufacture of Mozzarella cheese using milk obtained from water buffaloes (Bubalus arnee) in Southern Italy. Water-buffalo whey starters are derived from the whey of a previously successful batch of cheese and are generally stored at ambient temperature for 24 h prior to use. Relatively little research has been undertaken on these natural starters but they are known to contain leuconstocs, lactobacilli, lactococci and frequently streptococci

...

[linuxboy]

We haven't really covered that here because whey starters are a real PITA. I try to never mention them to prevent people from asking questions . They're a PITA commercially because they're prone to all sorts of contamination, and you have variations among batches. Bulk culture with rotation is much better.

but to answer your question

Has anyone already tried experimenting with this?

Yeah, not a fan, too much work.

Can whey be kept refrigerated for a week and used to inoculate milk?

Yes, as cold as possible (~34F), that's about the limit of its useful life. Store as aseptically as possible. Dunk the container in bleach solution (150-250 ppm) before opening and pouring into the vat. You need to grab the whey when it has exhausted all the lactose and before the acid starts harming bacteria. That's pH 4.6 for meso and ~4.2 for thermo.

Would diluted rennet present in whey influence ripening by starting to curdle milk earlier then it would otherwise?

Negligibly. You're using max 4% whey starter, so it's miniscule.

[woodsman]

Thank you for your answers linuxboy.

I guess I'm going to try and run my little experiment with a small batch and see where it takes me.

Any idea what amount of whey I should start with?

[linuxboy]

In terms of how much to preserve? Enough to get to a 4% by volume inoculation in the new batch if you needed to do 4%. I would use 1.5-2.5% whey inoculation to start with and adjust from there. It's basically like bulk culture.

You can also freeze the whey. Useful life is 2+ months that way. But freeze as soon as it reaches those pH targets, which usually takes about 12-18 hours at room temp.

[coffee joe]

I continue to be curious about this topic as using whey from the previous day's cheese making is traditional here in Brazil as well as Portugal and other locations.
    Brazil's famous Serra da Canastra and Serro are recipes brought here from Portugal and the  Azores and all use whey from the first pressing to culture the following day's production.
I know that the possibility of contamination is huge but they have been producing consistent quality for centuries.
Is Mother nature providing control?, is the salt in the first pressing providing protection?

Over the centuries, to the present,  rennet was and is from an amazing variety of animals, to the point that most recipes mention only that the rennet be animal, Capibara, lizard, goat even armadillo are used to make rennet, depending upon the region. There are also a wide variety of native plants used for rennet as well.

These cheeses have a sharp "bite" if properly aged and it is the "pingo" or "drop of whey" from the previous days cheese that is given credit for this.

[woodsman]

Thanks again linuxboy - it's good to know where to safely start - I was actually thinking of starting with a larger quantity and most likely making curds for my pigs as a result

coffee joe, I'm really interested in your experiences. I live in a subtropical environment and ambient temperature inside my kitchen is between 27C/80 F - 31C/88F most of the year which presents a challenge on its own.  For example I press my cheese inside a cooler with a frozen one gallon jug of water which I replace daily.

I'm going to save some whey tomorrow, use it next week and report the results.

[coffee joe]

Woodsman,

I was in Belize once upon a time about 25 years ago. Great place. If you are up in the mountains, as I am, the tropics are great. I'm not much of a fan of hot sticky tropical coastlines except for a week at the beach every year!

I think this is one of the factors in using whey for culture safely. Altitude. The Portuguese always searched out areas over 1000 Meters above sea level for cheese production. This fact is in many old writings on cheese and continues to this day. Also I don't know about storing or what that can do to the culture. From all I've learned here from families that have been making cheese for 200+ years is that they make cheese every day Christmas and New Years included. So the salt in the whey preserves the culture from one day to the next. I have a friend who insists that the culture is native and preserved by Mother Nature. Reality is that many still don't have light or decent roads to market, so there is little else to do with the milk. They make some great cheese. No pH pens or thermometers but they have centuries of ingrained technology. We can learn from them, I doubt we can successfully copy them.