All the different cultures (Meso, Thermo, Type II, Type B... etc etc etc

[Dolmetscher007]

This question is meant mostly to be anecdotal. I do not actually expect you guys to write out answers with specifics. I was just wondering... how did you guys "learn" what all the different cheese cultures are good for? Like, I made cottage cheese once, and it used mesophilic cultures. I just tried to make trad. mozzarella which required Thermo Type B (II)... but I have no idea when to use one vs. the other, except for when it is written in a recipe. Do you guys just pick it up over time, and start to remember that mozz uses X culture, and Cheddar uses Y... etc?

[Susan38]

Hi!  Your question is a good one, and one that has been asked before by others, in different places in this forum, and by me (at this link in particular:  https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,17729.0.html).  At this link I've included another link to a chart that might be helpful to you, as well as other info I've found.  Hope it helps to answer your questions regarding this subject! 

[mikekchar]

The easiest way to look at it is that there are lactic acid bacteria (LAB) and there are "other" things (some of which are called "adjuncts").  To make a normal cheese, you need LAB.  There are 2 different LABs used in cheesemaking: mesophilic (that work from room temp up to about 38 C (100 F)) and thermophilic (that work from 38 C (100 F) to about 52 C (125 F).  An example of thermophilic LAB is normal yogurt.  Notice that you can buy different brands of yogurt and they all taste slightly different.  Some will also set faster than others.  Some will even make your yogurt slimey/slippery.  They are all different.  The same is true for mesophilic LAB.  There are even some mesophilic yogurts (usually from around the Caspian sea: usually they don't set as hard as theromophilic yogurt). Cultured buttermilk is also a mesophilic yogurt.  These yogurts are all very different in flavour too -- and cultured buttermilk usually has a buttery flavour (which comes from the bacteria, not the butter!).

Just like there are a lot of yogurts with different flavours, there are a lot of cheese LABs with different flavours and characteristics.  Traditional cheesemakers often use naturally occurring LAB that shows up in their milk.  Other cheesemakers use cultures from the laboratory.  You can sometimes ask cheesemakers what LAB they are using.  One of the Camembert style cheesemakers I know from Yamanashi prefecture  in Japan uses a national brand mesophilic yogurt (called Caspian) in their Camembert and it's really quite good (a bit unusual, but very nice).  However, generally you can't really match up commercial cheeses to the cultures they are using.  Instead you have to try a culture and see what it tastes like (and how it performs).  It's a bit expensive, but not crazily so.

I used to make beer a *lot* and I eventually got to know many, many of the commercial yeasts available.  High quality liquid yeasts are similarly expensive to LAB cultures, but without some expertise, you can only make one batch of beer with it!  Over years and years of making beer, I was able to try out a lot of things.  I used to be a member of a homebrew club and we used to share yeast (as well as taste each other's beer).  Cheesemaking isn't as popular, but possibly can find enough people to form a club and do something similar.

Anyway, there are other bacteria, yeasts and moulds that you need for specific cheeses.  It's probably best to wait until you need those things before you confuse yourself about them.  But, for example, even with geotrichum candidum (a white fungus that's used to condition the rind), you can buy 4 different varieties in most online shops.  If you go t the manufacturer, there is a dizzying array to choose from.  I seem to remember that Noella Macellino cataloged more that 100 different varieties in common use in French cheese making in her PhD thesis!  There really is no way for us as amateurs to try all of those!  And there is no real need: mostly if it is working for you, then it's fine.

There are some other "adjuncts" that people add to their cheeses as well for "special effects".  It's worth going through the many amazing threads on this forum because you'll run into a lot of them.  Mostly it is for fine tuning a cheese to get specific effects that you want.  When you first start out, there is no reason to worry about it because you are already struggling with the more macro oriented issues that will cover up that fine tuning anyway.  But, like I said, it's worth slowly nibbling away at learning about it.

One of the things that is a bit frustrating, but at the same time exciting about cheese making (as opposed to beer making for instance) is that there are a lot of variables at play.  Even though I've been spending quite a bit of time reading scientific papers, etc, I get the impression that most people have very little idea what makes cheese work out the way it does.  You'll get a lot of experts with amazing theories, but they are often just that - theories.  So you have to go and try it and see if it works for you.