No Commercial Starter Cultures Available - Recommendations?

[frhd]

What can I use instead of italian cheese starter culture?
There aren't starter culture and buttermilk in my city or it's better to say in my country.
Only things that you can find here is milk, rennet (only tablet from only one company) and yogurt.

[Sailor Con Queso]

You can use yogurt as a substitute for Thermophilic cultures.

[frhd]

How many yogurt? If a recipe says 4 ounces starter culture, shall I use 4 ounces yogurt?

[cheezwhizz]

    Hi Frhd

  Ive used yogurt for a starter culture before and the cheese turned out very good. I used 2 oz. per 1 gals. milk for a Romano cheese....  Also, if your using raw milk you could make a clabber and that will give you a meso culture

    What kind of cheese are you planning on making?

[KosherBaker]

How many yogurt? If in recipe say 4 ounces starter culture, shall I use 4 ounces yogurt?

The answer to this questions will almost certainly depend on what kind of cheese you are planing to make.
Also most folks on this forum purchase their cheese making supplies, like cultures, rennet and molds, over the internet.

Welcome to the forum.

[frhd]

Thanks for responses
I don't want a recipe for an specific cheese I ask about ratio between starter culture and yogurt. Is the ratio of starter culture to yogurt 1 to 1?
depends on cheezwhizz's response I think is 1:1.

[berrys66]

Hi frhd,

It really does depend on a lot of factors such as:

* Is the yogurt you plan to use home made or shop bought?
* How fresh is the yogurt?
* Which thermophilic bacteria are present in the yogurt?
* What cheese you are plan on making?

A very rough rule of thumb 9and I mean very) would be 1 tbsp of yogurt to 1 gallon of milk.

[Sailor Con Queso]

You use yogurt (or buttermilk) the same way you do a Mother Culture. Use 1% to 2% of yogurt by weight. Avg = 1.5%. Calculate the weight of your milk in ounces and the take 1.5% of that. THAT is how many ounces of yogurt to use. One tablespoon per gallon is not enough. It would take all day to acidify.

[Tatoosh]

If you are not relatively close to the vendor of a starter, things can get problematic and expensive.  Getting a starter shipped across the Pacific ocean or past slow, laborious customs officers can be very challenging. 

If frhd is looking for the components to make cheese and he's not in North America, Europe or Australia, things can be less than easy.  I suggest looking at the international list of vendors here, there may be a cheese supply closer than you realize, frhd. 

As the other members noted, cultured buttermilk and yogurt can be used for starters as well.  Here is a company in the USA that sells a buttermilk culture that  is not so temperature sensitive, so it can be shipped overseas: http://www.culturesforhealth.com/buttermilk-starter-318.html  You can check out their yogurt cultures too. They have one that works at room temperature and can be shipped overseas without special packaging (cooling packs).  But you already have access to yogurt so that is probably less interesting to you.

Good luck with your yogurt substitution.  I hope it works for you.  I may try the same thing shortly.  I have ordered both the buttermilk and yogurt starters myself. 

I saw the comment about making a clabber, something I need to learn about!