Greetings from New Mexico

[Trav45]

Just started cheesemaking in March.  So far I've made fromage blanc, halloumi (oth turned out great); a camambert that went wonky, but still tasted good;  I have a gouda aging, retried the camamembert and am about to give Caerphilly a go.  Trying to get my head around how to choose / substitute cultures, rather than just following recipes blindly (though I do that, too!).  I''m reading/ rereading Caldwell's book, which helps, but there's not a lot of info on each culture and its impact--why you'd use, for example, MM100 or MM4001.  Does anyone know of any explanatory charts?

[tecla]

There are sections in Caldwell's book talking about the cultures and their typical use, but it also gives a breakdown on which cultures are in each packet. I like to learn about each (LL, LLD, ST, etc) so when I see a culture packet I can get a quick idea of it's purpose just by looking at the cultures included in it.

I also built my own spreadsheet that has the cultures and their basic facts, and the different packets and which cultures they have, notes, and a URL where I can buy them, because there are a lot of them and it can be hard to keep track.

Finally, I like to look at cheese making supply websites and their packet product pages as they often have manufacturer information and suggested treatment rates, suggested cheeses to use it in, etc.

It's a bit hard to piece all the info together, but it's definitely out there. Maybe I'll post my spreadsheet, that might be useful for you.

[tecla]

Here is that cheese cultures spreadsheet (as a PDF, apologies for the weird format). I hope it's useful to you.