Milk temperature

[rosawoodsii]

Just how critical is the temperature of the milk when adding the culture?  I see recipes for the same cheese that use different temperatures, and I see some recipes that differentiate temperatures for goat milk and some that don't.  Since I use primarily raw goat milk, I'd like to know how critical the temperature is---and what did they do before thermometers?

[Gustav]

It all depends on the type of cultures you use. If its mesophilic cultures, It's not nice to add it at temps above 40'C-50'C as it can't tolerate the heat, where as thermophilic cultures prefer to go 42'C-52'C.

As long as the temp is as above, it shouldn't be a problem, although, I once made a gouda cheese & accidentally heated the curds to 50'C, & the cheese came out ok. I think there were some live cultures left, and the ripening process propably took a bit longer.

Before themometers, I guess they went on sight & feeling. When the milk reaches a temp where its starts getting too hot to put your finger in, it's about 50'C-60'C. When making yogurt eg. when the milk starts to make foam on top, it's about 85'C-90'C. Why?  What happened? Did you heat something up too much or don't you have a themometer? I didn't have one once, & guessed when making yogurt, but after I got one, I realised I was about 10'C too cold on guessing 

Hope this helps.

[dthelmers]

I took a class last August and that got me started making cheese. She was making a basic hard cheese using thermophilic culture. Her temperature instructions were: blood warm for culturing, fever hot for cooking the curd.
I guess that's pretty much how they did it before thermometers.
Dave in CT

[Sailor Con Queso]

Every bacterial strain has a "sweet spot" where they grow and produce lactic acid most efficiently. Warmer milk will cause things to happen quicker and you would need to adjust the timing for the rest of the make. For example, if you are making a cheese and the recipe calls for 86F before adding culture, but you overshoot to 90F, it's not the end of the world. However, because of the warmer temperature, the bacteria will multiply and create lactic acid faster. That means that if you don't adjust the times the cheese is going to build up too much acidity. So recipes for the same cheese can/do vary but they also should compensate for the timing differences.

[rosawoodsii]

It all depends on the type of cultures you use. If its mesophilic cultures, It's not nice to add it at temps above 40'C-50'C as it can't tolerate the heat, where as thermophilic cultures prefer to go 42'C-52'C.

Why?  What happened? Did you heat something up too much or don't you have a themometer? I didn't have one once, & guessed when making yogurt, but after I got one, I realised I was about 10'C too cold on guessing 

Hope this helps.

Nothng really happened, except I'm back to using my candy thermometer, since my so-called "instant read" thermometer died (dropped it in 180 F water).  Once I didn't have my thermometer at all and just guessed.  Mostly, though, I wondered why there was a difference in temps in recipes for the same kind of cheese.  And why goat milk is supposed to be 2 degrees cooler than cow milk.

And btw, why in the world do they call a thermometer than takes a minimum of 20 seconds to come to temperature an "instant read"?   That's only about 5 seconds different from my non-instant.  Instant to me is within 6-7 seconds, 10 at the most (and then I'm getting antsy).

[rosawoodsii]

Thanks, Sailor.  That explains it nicely.

And to dtelmers, that's very helpful for the next time I break a thermometer (once I broke 3 in a day...it was not a good day).