I always measure pH during the "set". If there's ever a problem (slow set, no set...) having the pH helps me narrow the troubleshooting dramatically! Sometimes with the same starter I have to add more/less over the months but I keep the data to see the trends.
If using raw milk then you're at the mercy of what bacteria are in the raw milk. When I make cheese I want to control what bacteria grow so I only used pasteurized milk and starter culture.
Let me understand, are you suggesting/recommending NOT to use raw milk?
If you don't know the quality of your incoming raw milk (pH, SPC count, titratable acidity) I say no. If you can quantify those then yes because its a real crapshoot using raw milk with an unknown bacterial load.
Lots of great cheeses are made with raw milk but they know the quality of it (and its good) for sure.
I have made cheddar with only a slight heat treatment (HTST but low temperature) but rarely do I use milk with a SPC count of greater than 10,000 colonies/mL.
Thanks for that info. I don't have the ability to check all those numbers and I'll never have to. As a hobbyist and home cheese maker, I make really very-very good cheeses using only raw milk (do not pasteurize for over 60 days and over aged cheeses), and buttermilk or yogurt are my only starter cultures. I do not intend to imitate the industrial cheeses, I'll be satisfied even if a same type of cheese will turn out different from batch to batch. I look at that as part of the fun of this addictive hobby.
that's awesome Alex!!! I know I may not be a great resource on here making more industrial cheese but I hope I can offer some of my experience here and there.
I know I repeat about a pH meter but even you can get a real good gauge of raw milk from pH too -- if raw milk is under 6.6 pH I would be wondering about its quality
Also if a herd is unhealthy - mastitis, blood in milk, high somatic cell count....that can impact the cheese.
The milk is your main ingredient - garbage in, usually garbage out so to speak - if you keep that part good you have a WAY better chance of predicting how your cheese will go!!
I got a kick out of the Monty Python movie Life Of Brian "did he say blessed are the cheesemakers?!!" that part cracks me up!
I appreciate your advice, but I don't see myself getting involved in the pH-ing issue. I have my milk from a commercial farm milking 80-100 cows, twice a day. I always take the milk at the afternoon milking, during the milking. I make the cheeses almost immediately or next morning. I am not concerned about illness or sanitation, as the farm is under strict and constant veterinary inspection.
I'm with you Alex. I have no interest in producing predictable "industrial" cheeses. The natural lactic bacteria in raw milk makes for a much more complex tasting cheese. The pH is one gauge of the quality of raw milk. If there are too many native bacteria, they will start converting lactose to lactic acid and the pH will drop. I have never had raw milk below 6.55. Of course you can always adjust the amount of starter bacteria, ripening time, etc and still hit target pH levels for the type of cheese that you are making.
As far as pathogenic bacteria are concerned, the goal is for the starter bacteria to outcompete any bad bacteria that are present. They gobble up all the food and leave nothing for the pathogens to feed on. When milk goes bad, there is no doubt. When cheese goes bad, you'll know it within a few days. That's why raw cheeses need to be aged for 60 days or more.
My husbands best friend has a small local dairy. they supply the schools and the local stores of one state-wide chain.
they have a very modest, very low budget set-up. It is similar to the set-up that was used on the dairy farm I grew up on. With that said, any cow even SUSPECTED of having an illness is milked out on the floor. It was done that way 20 years ago.
I would suspect that any milker worth their salt, would not only know their animals, but would never introduce that milk into their drinking/cheesemaking supply.
It has been many years since I lived on a farm, but I can still spot a sick cow a mile away.
Besides, raw milk has been so villified by the usda, that to sell raw milk you must jump thru more hoops than a circus poodle. So I see no need to worry about it.
I use raw milk almost exculsively. Both of my supplers are Grade A producers and have unquestionable quality products. I also make mostly hard cheeses that are aged for months and sometimes years. The cheese quality and flavor I get since finding a raw milk supplier is quaduple what I can make from the store bought milk.
that's awesome - I wish the regulations where I am would let me make raw milk cheese.