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Well, I have been trying and trying to make clabber and just am not happy with the flavor.  I have made the mesophilic/buttermilk recipe before and used that as my culture but I really want the specific cultures of my raw milk.  Can I make a mesophic culture by adding the buttermilk to my raw milk until it clabbers and use it or do I have to pasurize the milk first?  Thanks

What method are you using to make your clabber?  Fresh, first generation clabber can have an odd taste to it, but if you use a bit of your first batch to make another and then another after that, the flavor mellows a lot.

The method is described in this link.

You are always available to help...thank you!  Well, I have not truly gotten past the first initial clabber.  The temps in my house change drastically and I'm not sure if that is partly to blame.  However,  it always seems to be a bit  bubbly and just smells strange...not sour or tart like I thought.  I have very clean milk and sanitary procedure.   It took about 6 days to clabber about a cup of milk.  I wonder if it didn't get too hot during the clabbering.  It is blazing hot during the day and cold at night in my house....what to do....

Sorry I can't contribute much to this, just to say I'm following this with interest.  My first effort at clabbering was not successful, mostly, it now seems apparent, the SLAB load is quite low.  It took 20-some hours to finally clabber, and when it did, it was, from my best palate estimation, really heavy in diacetyl (likely, LC), with some metallic and DMS notes.  Not a good, clean, sharp culture.  Exchanged with Pav about this, and he suggested the same as you, Karen - to keep re-inoculating, to end up with a relatively stable clabber culture.  He also suggested ripening at a bit higher of a temp than I was doing - up to 94F or so, favoring the lactobacilli over LC.  LC, in addition to producing diacetyl, as a citrate fermenter, will produce CO2 - possible cause for your bubbles? (just a thought).  Would you characterize the smell as a kind of odd "butteriness?"

Right there with you, MountainMaiden - I'd love to use only my milk.

Thank you for the help....I feel some hope  .  I had two people smell it and it made them think of sourdough bread.  But to me it smelled like horse dung...sorry but it really did.  That helps to know about the bubbles, I was very concerned about the saftey of it.  I was really worried that I had it at to high of a temp.  Because my house was so cold there for a day or two I put it on my stove while the oven was warm...wondering now if that got it to hot.  Then when nothing happened after a couple of days I moved it onto a shelf in the sun.....maybe I should have been patient and put it on the counter for longer at a cooler temp? 

Mountain, I'm not certain it's CO2, just a thought as to the likelihood.  You say, horse dung - any chance it's kind of like a skunk, rotten eggs, H2S? 

I'm always more cautious than not, when it comes to food safety....from my cheffing days, when in doubt, throw it out.  If it were me, and I had these doubts, likely, I'd start over again.  But that's just me.  Next time, I'd suggest making sure each transfer stage is done as aseptically as possible (I'm sure you do this), and trying to maintain a steady 94F or so.  (Temp changes are also not good for your flora).  I do that, in Yoav's pid-controlled vat design, pretty nifty. 

How many days should about a cup of raw milk take to clabber?  I will try to keep my temps more steady and see if that helps.  It really didn't smell "rotten"  but real cheese/bread warm not tart smell with alittle bit of some hidden odd smell.  We use to get our milk tested quite often and I can't imagine it's contaminated however, I make bread just about everyday.  I am very careful not to get near the "cheese"  area but I wonder if the yeast in more or less in the air...and if it is a yeast problem?

Mountain, I can't really speak to much - please understand, I'm a newbie trying new things! - but can tell you, about that much took about 20 hours to clabber.  The smell wasn't really "bad," nothing immediately off putting, just not really "pleasant," nothing suggesting the clean sour of buttermilk, more of a rounded, buttery "weirdness," which suggested LC (this was Pav's first thought as well, when I talked to him about this). 

Wish I could be more helpful, but I don't know what you've got.  I'm almost positive your milk is clean; in fact, my milk is too clean - I think the SLAB count is so low, it will take several generations of clabber-inoculate-clabber just to get up to a usable mass.  In fact, I should do that, now that I think of it...

Anyway, I've learned, it isn't about sterile technique - from my brewing days, we were insane about closed, sterile systems - but about creating condtions that allow your desired flora to take off.  I'd say, try it again, do what you're doing, but try a consistent water-bath soak at 93-94F, and see what you get.  Then inoculate again, and again, and see if you end up with a faster, cleaner clabber. 

Hope that helps - as I say, I'm learning, too, so following this with keen interest!

Paul

That helps...will try the water bath tonight.  It's funny but although I'm a clean freak, I'm also against chemicals and "boy in the bubble" syndrome...I'm exposed to just about every bacteria there is   We have a true old fashioned farm and raise show Jersey cattle and Berkshire hogs.  It's so hard though to not think I'm about to poison someone with my cheese!  Crazy I know..  I know that the pioneers making cheese 100 years ago could not have been this sterile and made wonderful cheese.  Hopefully I can lighten up a bit.   So, I will post my new "clabber" results soon...thanks again!

Oh my $%%$%$#!!!!!, mountain, you're killing me!!!!!!!!! 

Berkshire is the finest pork I've ever used; hands down.  I used to ask for a rack from the shoulder end, first 9 ribs; with blade excised away, it presented like a center cut, but was the heavily-vascularized shoulder end, my favorite cut off any meat, typically.  That, and a braised shank, with cider and caramelized quinces, finished with Calvados.  Insanely good pork. 

I always joke with Pav that I have 2 guys warring inside of me, all the time; both brewers.  One is named Hans, wears a lab coat, and loves recording HAACP readings.  He drinks only lagers. 

The other guy, Ian, wears a mechanic's blues, shaved head, couldn't care less about sterile technique; he's using yeasts that have been built up in his great-great-granddaddy's Yorkshire Squares, and knows they can kill nasty-anythings this side of York.  He drinks only ales.

Both are important; and both can cool their jets, when we all agree - it's beer; and it's only beer.

  That is too funny!  I didn't know you had those two in you as well!  Yeah I have to say I know that I am very blessed!  I feel guilty almost to have such a wonderful farm.  We do our own curing and smoking and I render all the lard to cook with (although I know a lot of people are against animal fat... I personally....can't live without it).  I just wish I could master the cheese.  My hogs are so happy when I don't...they get all my "do over" cheese.  One thing I didn't find out though about the clabber.  I made it with raw milk that had the store bought buttermilk added to it (1/4 cup to quart of milk) and it took a little over a day to clabber.  Do you think I could use this in cheese?  I know this is how a lot of people make buttermilk I just don't know about the cheese.....

Your farm sounds idyllic, Mountain.  I'm about to go back to school....yep, to learn how to dairy farm, pasture-based dairying.  So I hope I can report by this time next year, I'm one of you.  I intend on giving my hogs whey only....poor critters!

On the clabbering, I hope Pav will come on board - he's my go-to guy for so many things, this being one of them.  Sorry I can't be of more help.  I know I didn't want to use anything but the natural mesophilics in the milk, so I didn't even use buttermilk.  I plan on trying again, smelling, tasting, using a small amount of that clabber to build up another clabber, doing this at a relatively higher temp (94 or so) to preferentially encourage lactobacilli, then trying it in a meso make. 

As to your current clabber, I wouldn't say it sounds like a good starter culture, not yet - your description sounds to me like you've got a fairly low load of lactobacilli, and a possible higher ratio of citrate-fermentating organisms.  I'd try using this as a seed, per the above, over and over until you get a relatively rapid clabber (what that is, I can't say - I'd love to obtain a 6 hour clabbering, but don't know much about this method so am only shooting blind) and try it on another make. 

Sorry that I can't be of more help.  As I said, I'd love for Pav or one of the other gifted folks on board to chime in.  Good luck!

Paul

Whenever you make clabber, it's a gamble for what you wind up with as the first generation, and also a gamble for what you achieve after a few generations. Clabber is not some magical answer to everything and it's not a given that just because you let milk sit out, it will form the most beautiful, thick, tasty lactic curd. More often than not, the opposite happens and you wind up with something weird, or slimy, or with off flavors and smells. Don't despair, it's all part of the process. Unless you plate out your milk and isolate colonies of everything that grows, it is tough to get it going right away. Think of it like this. There are all sorts of bacteria, yeasts, and molds everywhere. Many of them like very similar conditions for temperature and food. When you put all of them together, it forms a soup of all sorts of stuff. The way to try and isolate them if you're not banking them is to try and let the strains you want dominate. So you create favorable conditions for those strains.

For example, say you were making thermophilic clabber and are trying to isolate a starter for mozzarella or for many Italian cheeses. What you would do there is thermize the milk to 125-130F or so, and then keep the temp at 105F and let it sit out to see what happens. The thermization would kill of mesophiles and psychotrophs, and then the constant temperature (vital) of 105F would encourage bacilli and S thermophilus to grow.

Or if you wanted to make mesophilic clabber, it's a similar process, but it's harder because you have to keep the temps around 88F, and at those temps, many other things will grow. One way to mitigate this, is to try and isolate more active meso bacteria, such as L lactis and L cremoris. Both of those will grow at 100F. And at 100F, you are at the high end for leuconostocs, yeasts, etc, which will be inhibited. So that's one approach, to control the ratio through temperature, and then keep propagating forward with the higher temperature until the ratios of the various participants in the biological ecosystem shift over to only lactic bacteria.

Another approach is to keep the temp more moderate, such as at 90F, and keep culturing forward, and let the natural bacteriocidal compounds that lactic bacteria produce cause a condition where the lactic bacteria predominate. This is really tough because it's a roll of the dice for what bacteria you have in your environment. From your last batch, you had a really, really low load of lactic bacteria. Not too encouraging. But your process was inexact. Leaving milk out to sour, while romantic, will not help you get to where you want because starter culture science is really precise. Once every great while someone somewhere can achieve good clabber at room temp, if they have a high load of leuconostocs, but that's very regional, and rarely happens overall.

If you add buttermilk to clabber, IMHO, I don't see the point. You're contaminating the buttermilk at that point, because your clabber is not stable. It will help you shortcut through a few propagations, but it will not give you a stable, multi-generational, strong starter.

to sum:
- it is vital that you can control temps very exactly, if you want repeatability
- usually takes many attempts to get anywhere
- It would help you tremendously if you understood the basics of how microbiological communities work

I think she's saying that she used buttermilk to jump start her clabber by adding the buttermilk to raw milk.

I can never get clabber going in the winter because my house is way too cold.  I do make it in the summer, though it takes at least 4 generations for it to have good flavor.  I don't keep it anywhere near 90 degrees, but my house is usually in the range of 70-75 in the summertime.  I don't make clabber in the kitchen, wanting to avoid any yeast contamination.

I think you just need to give it a few generations to get going.  At room temp, it usually takes about 5 days for just raw milk to clabber.  Successive generations take much less because you are adding starter to the raw milk.

If you add the buttermilk, you have a sort of hybrid. It's one way to try and have a more consistent culture and to have a stable starter faster. It's a practical approach but doesn't solve the underlying challenge of how to obtain a great meso starter at temps that grow all sorts of other yeasts and bacteria.

A temp of 70-75 works, but it's harder to achieve a starter free from contaminants at those temps. For me, it's the same thing, takes multiple generations until I have something that's usable.