I have been having some issues with milk lately. Been systematically running through the various brands of pasteurized homogenized milks that are available at the grocery stores in my area, and have found that some brands are much worse than others but all of them don't seem to produce a good curd. So I went and got some pasteurized non homogenized milk that I have used quite successfully for mozzarella, but have avoided since because it's only available in 1L glass bottles and it's quite a bit more of an effort to bring home 8-12L of it than it is to buy a couple of gallon jugs. It worked like a charm, best coagulation that I've had since the mozzarella. But.... the bottles all have a little plug at the top, super dense cream that's risen. I had hoped that as the milk warmed up it would melt/soften enough to be able to be mixed back in. No luck. From the stirring while it was warming, the stirring to mix in the lipase, culture, CaCl, rennet, by the time I had cut and was stirring the curds, it was forming globs of what was essentially butter. I've read that non-homogenized milk is preferable for cheese making, but if a portion of the fat is always going to separate out into butter, would I be better off using homogenized milk?
Your experience is typical with pasteurized, non-homogenized milk. I've found that if you pour about half the bottle into the vat and then really shake up the rest with the cream in it the little globs of butter are minimized.
Thanks Kern. Do you leave the bits of butter that do form in with the curds, or do you scoop them off?
I wipe them off the sides of the vat and where they collect on utensils. Otherwise I don't bother. Somehow the small fat globules seem to vanish once the curd has been cut. I've yet to see a glob of butter in an aged cut cheese.
If I have persistent floating globs of "butter", I take them out and save them to add to veggies or fish! Yummy! It does not seem all that significant amount anyway. And the cream plug in the jar is not all the fat in the milk. Some does not rise to the top.
I've had the hard butter plug in the creamline milk I buy. The bottle label says to shake the bottle before opening. With both hands firmly on the bottle, I shake each bottle like hell until the plug loosens. Most of the time I can successfully reincorporate the cream.
It helps if the milk is as fresh as you can get it. The cream is then softer and more easily assimilated.
If I'm not that lucky, I skim any floating globs of butter so that the whey I remove to make the whey-brine is clearer.
-Boofer-