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Farmhouse cheddar, 4 gallons raw cow milk, meso starter, standard process ending with 50 lbs overnight press. 5 days for nice rind formation, smoked for 1 hour in cold apple smoke, halved for packaging and....bam-o....tiny bubbles. These tiny bubbles do not make-a me happy. Doesn't taste bad, like young cheese, and it looks like this one and this other one.

Reading through the archives, it seems the most likely culprit is contamination. This would be surprising to me because as an avid brewer for over 15 years, I'm keen on the cleanliness. And though I'm still new to cheese, this is the first time this has happened. So I'm looking for the cause...and I suspect my starter.

This was the first time I used prepared starter instead of direct set. I made the starter 5 days earlier, froze in sterilized muffin tins (get 2 ozs each that way!). Having never done this before, I wasn't too sure if it came out right, but it seems OK, thick enough, tasted/smelled like I read about.

So my question is...is there a way to test your starter to see if it's up to snuff? It's possible I messed it up, and there was no starter working on the milk, and I wound up with some wild beastie taking over. I'm leaning towards a starter problem...is this method worth it, or should I just stick to direct set?

MattK

Quote from: MattK on September 24, 2010, 01:56:59 PM
So my question is...is there a way to test your starter to see if it's up to snuff? It's possible I messed it up, and there was no starter working on the milk, and I wound up with some wild beastie taking over. I'm leaning towards a starter problem...is this method worth it, or should I just stick to direct set?

MattK

Yes, you can individually test for specific bacteria on selective agar or 3M media.

It's up to you if you want to use DVI or not and depends on your aseptic handling capabilities. How did you heat treat the milk and culture the starter? Usually contamination like that with starter is either from the medium or from handling.

Quote
Yes, you can individually test for specific bacteria on selective agar or 3M media.

That seems more effort than it's worth at my scale. It's cheaper and easier to pitch the frozen starter and begin again, or switch back to DVI (had to look that acryonym up...thanks for the vocab help!)

I processed the starter milk for 45 minutes in quart-sized Ball jars (I did a thermo starter at the same time...and now I'm wondering if I should even try that one), then cooled unopened to the target temps, pitched starter, resealed, and stowed in mini cooler overnight, froze in AM.

Thanks for the reply!

Hmm, that should have been okay. Usually all the lab work isn't practical for home cheesemakers.

Are the holes small, rounded ones, or more random (mechanical)? Might just be the press schedule?

Or the milk?

Quote from: linuxboy on September 24, 2010, 02:24:21 PM
Are the holes small, rounded ones, or more random (mechanical)? Might just be the press schedule?

Rounded and evenly spread out, very similar to the first link in my original post. I'll take a pic tonight and post it.

co2 production from propionic, yeast, or coliform (or similar)

Contamination could simply be from a gassy milk sue to something the cow ate. I doesn't have to be worrisome.

So how can I tell if this is OK to eat? If it tastes OK, is that the determining factor?

Here's a pic of the Holy Farmhouse:

Those dark spots are nuts or something right?

Generally speaking a coliform bacteria contamination will have a sourish bad smell. These holes appear random more like a pressing issue than a contamination issue. Try a tiny bit if it tastes bad don't eat it. It doesn't look bad to me though.

I agree. This looks underpressed to me. Coliforms or other contaminant bacteria will produce holes that are rounder with better defined edges. How old is this cheese? If it's really young it's probably going to taste sour anyway. That does not mean that it's bad. Just age it some more.

No nuts...those are shadows from the point-blank flash. If you click on the picture for the larger view, you can see the many small holes.

Sailor - the cheese is 6 days old, and it's not sour or off, just young.

I'll keep it in the vac sealed bag for a few weeks and see what happens.

Thanks all for the tips and advice!

Before vaccuum sealing it, you may want to allow it to build up a bit of a rind first.  I learned the hard way by sealing up a Colby that I'd only air dried for about a week.  It ended up being quite pasty and sour tasting.

Thats a very young cheese some of those holes will disappear with aging as it shrinks too. It really looks fine to me and if it doesn't taste off it should be okay.

I agree with Karen 1 week is not long before vacpacking.