Before anyone asks - no, I haven't done this. Yes, I do want to do this though. So I'd love to get some feedback from people about this - have you done it? What do you think about it?
Capturing cultures in the wild is a more common idea in relation to another interest of mine - home brewing. In Belgium they have a very old tradition of lambic beers - beers where you do the beer mash, let the wort cool down, and then just wait for some random yeasts and bacteria to drift along and plop into the beers. Essentially what happens is the brew becomes a thriving orgy of all sorts of different cultures; you'll get alcohol from the yeasts - which compete with one another for the resources, so you'd probably get a very alcoholic brew very quickly - and souring from the bacteria, which acts over a longer time. And the cultures are probably spread by insects, jumping from brewing vessel to brewing vessel!
All that's by the by. Anyway, this sort of capturing cultures in the wild seems to me to be less common in the amateur cheesemaking world. And obviously there are dangers. But there are obvious advantages too.
DANGER
- You might kill yourself or someone else. Listeria, for instance.
- Cheese will be edible but disgusting.
That's about all the (relevant) dangers I can think of - I don't think they're that big actually (would happen in very rare instances if you do things right) and I think there are steps that can be taken to make these dangers absolutely minimal.
ADVANTAGES
- The cultures you capture from the wild will probably have much more long-term viability than store-bought cultures. They would certainly have more genetic diversity, though I'm not sure if we're talking true heirloom cultures or not.
- You could get some interesting cultures to use in future cheesemaking.
Obviously the easiest way is to capture a culture by just getting some raw milk and leaving it out during a warm day. You could keep it at a certain temp if you wanted to encourage certain mesophilic or thermophilic bacteria to dominate.
Another way would be to take a jar of pasteurised milk and throw in something - a leaf from a tree, or whatever - to try and capture the native LB that way.
And I'm pretty sure the acidification inherent in the making of yoghurt would tend to make the environment too bad for potentially harmful non-lacto bacilli, yeah? So your aim when culturing the first time would be to make a very acidic batch of yoghurt to really get the right LB cranking and then reculture from there?
ANYWAY! Let me know what you think!
My 50 cents about this:
I think I would go for cultivating the natural LB in the raw milk because IMHO that is the closest to "terroir" you will get.
If I remember correctly Alpkaserei posted something about Swiss farmers using a similiar method?
And here I am just trying to use known cultures to produce consistently edible cheeses with increasing quality.... ::)
Introducing non-sterile foreign matter into my cheeses is not something I'd do or recommend. :o
-Boofer-
I agree about adding things to the milk Boofer, but I know that the method of cultivating cultures from raw milk and stimulating meso or thermo by having the raw milk on the right temperature is something that is practiced a lot.
As a matter of fact, I posted something about the cultivation of PR with a method I learned from a MD/microbiologist. The same guy is at the moment trying to "reverse engineer" the cultures that are used in a certain type of Dutch cheese. Because he expected that the used culture is a mix of meso and thermo, he made a slush of a piece of that cheese and added some to milk at 32C and some to milk at 52C.
Within a bit more than 24 hours he ended up with two types of "yoghurt" this way, which he used to incubate a batch of Gouda cheese.
Yes, I think Alpkaserei did a fairly detailed post about how they captured a culture for the season from a bit of raw milk. Also I think someone - is it Tiarella - has made a few raw milk chevres?
But I also remember reading on Sandor Katz's website (http://wildfermentation.com/ (http://wildfermentation.com/)) feedback from a reader who had captured a wild culture just from the top of a 'pepper' - I'm assuming they just mean a capsicum. Apparently LB love those capsicums.
Yes, the results will be unpredictable. But if you successfully get LB producing lactic acid - over time - a few days at most - I'd think that culture would be effectively quite safe, yeah? I mean, that's one of the natural ways LB must protect themselves - and we're encouraging it.
Have to agree with Boofer----seems awful risky and uncontrollable in a home environment---- way to many of the bad bacteria floating around out there----do a search on human disease caused by bacteria----having been a survivor of a tick born bacteria----some of those bacteria can be real scary.
Qdog
You're a bit off about the lambics, lambics tend to be lower in alcohol because a good share of the sugars are converted to lactic acid rather than alcohol thus giving lambics their characteristic tang.
In a way we all capture wild organisms in our cheese making. The funky growths on a cottage cheddar aren't put there by the cheese maker. I am sure that we would find many organisms in our cheeses that we never added. The danger as I see it would be the fat content of the unfermented milk and the high pH both factors provide an environment suitable for botulism and lord knows what else. Now if it's raw milk than the naturally occurring lacto fermentors would likely acidify the milk before harmful bacteria/molds could take hold. In fact some research indicates that milk contains substances that inhibit the growth of many harmful organisms, these factors and competing mechanisms of the desirable bacteria are destroyed during pasteurization. Thus pasteurized milk is a much better breeding ground for pathogens then raw milk. This makes sense as nature would want to insure the food of an infant animal, milk, be safe or it wouldn't survive to reproduce and so such qualities would have evolved or mammals would just be another failed and thus extinct group. Unhygienic practices could obviously overpower this as they did in the early 20th century and the milk borne illnesses of the time led to pasteurization being implamented.
Wild organisms in fermentation are quite common. Lacto fermented sourkraut, vegetables (pickles) and sourdough use the bacteria that naturally occurs on the vegetable or grain. The lambic which you mentioned (the acidity of the wort would have inhibited the nasties). Summer sausages and some dry cured hams where the salt, lipase, and now nitrite select for the beneficial or at least non harmful bugs. And I don't even know what to say about those weird fermented fish things of the Inuits, Icelandics, and Asian cultures, although I do use a bit of fermented fish sauce in my Thai style curries. I believe that fermented fish sauce was used by the Romans in vast amounts and written about by the Roman physician Galen for it's health giving properties.
Well that's my 2 cents worth.
Be safe,
John
As far as capturing bacteria from a finished cheese -- I remember reading somewhere that the bacteria actually die off pretty early in the aging process, and the bulk of the aging is a matter of enzymes, plus any bacteria or mold that is on the surface of the cheese. Blue cheese, of course, has the mold throughout, but only grows if it has access to oxygen.
I don't know if the above is true, but if it is, I would guess the person trying to re-culture the key bacteria from a finished Gouda might really just be capturing wild bacteria -- ??
Quote from: awakephd on June 04, 2015, 01:07:29 PM
As far as capturing bacteria from a finished cheese -- I remember reading somewhere that the bacteria actually die off pretty early in the aging process, and the bulk of the aging is a matter of enzymes, plus any bacteria or mold that is on the surface of the cheese. Blue cheese, of course, has the mold throughout, but only grows if it has access to oxygen.
I don't know if the above is true, but if it is, I would guess the person trying to re-culture the key bacteria from a finished Gouda might really just be capturing wild bacteria -- ??
Well, since the guy who's trying this is in fact a microbiologist I'm pretty sure he also took samples of both meso and thermo cultures, put some on petri dishes and looked at it under the microscope ;D
I didn't need or want anything from "out of the wild" when I made my Tilsit #5 last year. I narrowly dodged an infection from a questionable "addition (https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,12813.msg99621.html#msg99621)" to my normally pristine creamline milk.
Member linuxboy could offer an opinion as to the efficacy of culturing from "in the wild" sources. From what he has written previously, it's not a casual exercise.
-Boofer-
I'd be hesitant about making any analogies between cheese making and fermenting sugar to make beer and wine. Bacteria ferment lactose to make cheese while yeast ferment sugars to make beer. Milk has a lot of protein present that is highly attractive pathogenic bacterial. The big danger in fermenting sugars to make beer and wine is that you end up producing acetic acid - the acid in vinegar. This is always readily apparent to the brewer or winemaker. Listeria, a common and often deadly pathogen, is essentially odorless and tasteless. Milk protein is a good growing media for listeria. Finally, in a way, what you propose doing has been done for several hundred years. It is called terrior and is what makes some cheeses unique to certain regions.
When you add all this up you are left with this question: "Is what you are planning to do worth the risk if some huge failure occurs?"
I doubt all the bacteria die off. Some would go dormant, maybe- though the ongoing acidification would seem to indicate continuing activity. Hoeklijns story would certainly seem to indicate a mature cheese will still contain sufficient quantities of live bacteria.
I tend to agree raw milk would be the best source for a new cheese culture. The fresher the better; the enzymes that are present in raw milk (enzymes which often degrade during pasteurisation) probably do help somewhat with safety and preservation, but milk is a complex thing. Some of the enzymes seem to be there, counter-intuitively, to help the milk break down; for instance, rennin and lipase.
Perhaps I could try and make a 'mesophilic' and 'thermophilic' culture from the one raw milk sample, like the microbiologist dude did from a Dutch cheese!
It's my understanding listeria can't survive beyond a certain level of acidity, and when you have a yoghurt you won't get listeria - because the yoghurt has already acidified so much anyway. So, if you successfully capture a wild culture and manage to culture milk with it - get the milk to the yoghurt stage - isn't that a clear indication that there will be no listeria present? Because obviously the lacto-fermentation has happened, and there is sufficient lactic acid to curdle the milk?
Tim-----in Amrein-Boyes book 200 easy cheese----she has a recipe for a raw milk French Tomme---it has no cultures added----instead relies on the natural culture in the milk and a 12 hour cycle at 50 degrees-----maybe that is what your looking for.
Qdog
Quote from: qdog1955 on June 05, 2015, 10:39:14 AM
Tim-----in Amrein-Boyes book 200 easy cheese----she has a recipe for a raw milk French Tomme---it has no cultures added----instead relies on the natural culture in the milk and a 12 hour cycle at 50 degrees-----maybe that is what your looking for.
Qdog
I think the trick may be starting with raw milk that has never been chilled so that the native cultures are viable instead of being shut down to whatever degree they are from temperature drop. Someone mentioned in this thread that I'd done something with native cultures and in my case it's the cultures that are native to the inside of a goat's udder. It's true though that I can't imagine "pristine enough" cheese making conditions that would prevent all native contamination and I've given up before I've started trying to prevent that. My cheese is made in my kitchen where there is a bundle of heirloom wheat hanging on the wall from last year, a bundle of Homegrown rice on the counter, bread cutting boards that aren't sanitized so probably covered in yeasties, kombucha brewing nearby, etc. I've thrown up my hands and waved the white surrender flag. I recognize that for much of history cheesemaking kitchens weren't sanitized and segregated from other activities and I don't boil or sterilize anything except once in a while for no apparent reason. ;). I do have occasional contamination but I think it's been about 4 times in several years of cheesemaking. I am always interested in seeing how many "rules" can be broken without compromising the cheese. I make a lot of tasty cheese without being paranoid that one little detail is off AND I totally admire folks who have the time and focus to do every last detail.
Quote from: Tiarella on June 05, 2015, 11:12:20 AM
.....the cultures that are native to the inside of a goat's udder......
I thought bacteria only enters the milk while it is in contact with the skin of the udder itself and not that it builds inside the milk glands. My understanding is that any milk from a healthy animal will be sterile until it hits the tit canal and the udder skin.
Quote from: IllinoisCheeseHead on June 05, 2015, 01:29:48 PM
Quote from: Tiarella on June 05, 2015, 11:12:20 AM
.....the cultures that are native to the inside of a goat's udder......
I thought bacteria only enters the milk while it is in contact with the skin of the udder itself and not that it builds inside the milk glands. My understanding is that any milk from a healthy animal will be sterile until it hits the tit canal and the udder skin.
I probably should have said that I know nothing about this and everything I say is speculation and musing from bits and pieces I've read. When I read your post though I wonder whether the theory/fact that you share accounts for the level of various bacteria in raw milk. milk move through the test canal pretty quickly. A milking machine does back-wash the outside of the test with milk in between pulsations which is why udder and test cleaning is so critical. My goat milk never touches the outside of the teat because of my milking systems. This is a fun thread......... Thanks to Tim for starting it!
There is no doubt, in my mind anyway, that this is the way in which man first discovered things like beer, wine, and cheese. Beer dates back to ancient Egypt and wine and cheese were probably about before that, although there doesn't seem to be much proof I know of off-hand. Many things are being challenged these days with regards to what was discovered when. However, no doubt, someone left some milk in a container in a barn or a stable or tent somewhere and it picked up the cultures necessary to create a basic form of cream cheese. We have a beginning. That, however, does not mean that those methods are better or preferred. No doubt many people were sickened, and probably died, during the "exploration" of the creation of cheeses. Many farmers in England use to wrap their blue cheese, read as Stilton, in straw while it aged so they could hide it in their barns. Raw milk Stilton was outlawed for some time. No doubt the French used similar methods to develop cultures and molds that could be used in cultivating cheeses. Bottom line is we have now refined the process to make it more reliable and convenient. You can try and go back and "re-discover" the cultures and molds, readily available, but be prepared to suffer the consequences as those that came before you did. Bottom line is using old and tested recipes to recreate artisan cheeses with safe ingredients is a noble and fun activity. Poisoning folks isn't much fun. Think before you leap. ;)
All these comments are great! Even the ones telling me I'm crazy and should in no way do what I am going to do!
I doubt milk is at any point free of bacteria. I stand to be corrected but I would have thought native lacto bacilli are one of the first lines of defense for milk, as it were - they move into this nutrient rich solution and take up all the available space before outside nasties can.
It would be difficult for me to get absolutely fresh raw milk (I could look into it though) that hasn't been chilled; best is probably from the store. (And I'd probably better do that soon; our Victorian government is trying to get rid of it.)
Here's the rough-and-ready plan for a culture: I get some raw milk. Take two samples; keep one at mesophilic LB temperatures, keep the other at thermophilic LB temperatures. And hopefully....
When I was brewing beer and making wines I read a lot of info that strongly stated that here in Australia you have to make sure everything is sanitised as the local wild yeasts and bacteria are far more dangerous than the European ones.
Quote from: TimT on June 05, 2015, 10:27:24 PM
I doubt milk is at any point free of bacteria. I stand to be corrected.....
If you google it you will see multiple references stating that raw milk is sterile when inside the udder when the animal is healthy. Regardless of how much the animal is cleaned before milking, there is beneficial bacteria happily waiting inside the tit ducts and it is then when it gets inoculated. You can also see references of these facts in the book "Mastering Artesian Cheesemaking: The Ultimate Guide for home-scale and Market Products as well as in
http://www.fao.org/docrep/004/t0218e/t0218e03.htm (http://www.fao.org/docrep/004/t0218e/t0218e03.htm) hosted by the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) as well as in in Milk Facts under http://www.milkfacts.info/Current%20Events/FAQ%20Page.htm. (http://www.milkfacts.info/Current%20Events/FAQ%20Page.htm.)
I know it sounds strange and I also thought it would be hard to believe when I first read it but seems to be a definitive fact.
I purchase raw Jersey cow's milk right where it is collected. When they put it in my bottles it is still warm and I can tell you I have never seen such a clean facility. They actually clean the udders and then use torches for a split second to burn any hair before the udder is connected to the milking machines. It is pretty neat.
When I was brewing beer and making wines I read a lot of info that strongly stated that here in Australia you have to make sure everything is sanitised as the local wild yeasts and bacteria are far more dangerous than the European ones.
I've read stuff saying that, and I've read stuff stating the contrary position. I think it's prudent to be aware of local yeasts and bacteria as a danger. Of course I've had personal experience with infections - more in brewing than in cheesemaking, for whatever reason - but it hasn't been that extreme. I have heard stories of extreme experiences - wild infections that move in and nothing - no matter of cleaning and sterilising and changing equipment - will shift in. But these stories are few and far between. Personally I feel that they're no more danger than in Europe and the US, and you should simply be aware of the seasonal and environmental factors that will support or hinder your own projects and support or hinder infections. That includes both brewing *and* cheesemaking.
Al, you say poisoning folks isn't much fun.....I hope you haven't had direct experience that led to that conclusion. ;D I would think it would depend slightly upon which person/people you poisoned. I would think that there are some politicians it might be downright jolly to have disappear due to cheese indulgence but no fear, it's not on my to-do list. I do think you may be a bit harsh though.....I think there are specific things one can do to make this a safer experiment and I personally encourage folks to have at it.....with care. Raw milk is safer (if cleanly produced and of course this is a generalization) to experiment with since it comes with bacteria that can out-compete the pathogens. Watch your cheese for warning signs of dangerous contamination. Try only a small piece and see how you feel and only then try more to see how your body reacts to that and then consider offering to guests/friends if they are not immune system compromised. I believe there are testing kits for e. Coli. Pholia Farm's site talks about them somewhere.
Yes, milk in the udder is sterile.
Milk producers send in milk samples routinely that are hand milked from alcohol-wiped teats into sterile vials, then chilled and shipped. The lab cultures the milk sample and the only result you want is negative for all bacteria. ANY bacteria in the udder is a sign of mastitis and the SCC (somatic cell count) will raise immediately. The lactic bacteria all come from the teat end, hands, the air, etc.
It's quite safe to play around with culturing raw milk for several reasons. One, if it acidifies (which it most certainly will), you're quickly out of the danger zone for Salmonella, Listeria, Staph A, etc. You know what cultured milk smells like? You will know if it does not acidify. Two, virtually every sample that has been contaminated by manure will display coliform growth by developing bubbles in a relatively short time. If it bubbles, it's bad.
So the only instance where your milk can turn into something tangy and nicely cultured would be straight lactic-acid bacteria culturing, with no interference from pathogens and coliforms.
The best way to develop your own culture would be to set a container of warm raw milk out and let sit until it curdles. Take a spoonful of that, and add it to a fresh warm jar of milk. Let culture. It should happen a lot sooner this time. Repeat once more. Then use it in a cheese recipe. The only problem is that you're restricting yourself to one certain set of cultures. You then have to find out which cheese should be made from that culture. ;)
Also, if you make a lot of cheese already, using bought cultures, those are the cultures that you will most likely end up propagating anyway. They tend to jump around.
One more thing... it's not uncommon for coliforms to show up if your milk isn't pristine, unfortunately.
That's great advice, thanks! I'm writing from Australian in the southern hemisphere where it's winter - so temp control may be required. That's excellent and helpful information about the various infections that cheese can get.
Quote from: Tiarella on June 06, 2015, 07:11:14 PM
Al, you say poisoning folks isn't much fun.....I hope you haven't had direct experience that led to that conclusion. ;D I would think it would depend slightly upon which person/people you poisoned. I would think that there are some politicians it might be downright jolly to have disappear due to cheese indulgence but no fear, it's not on my to-do list.
Seems we have like minds my dear!! XO
Quote from: Al Lewis on June 06, 2015, 10:18:45 PM
Quote from: Tiarella on June 06, 2015, 07:11:14 PM
Al, you say poisoning folks isn't much fun.....I hope you haven't had direct experience that led to that conclusion. ;D I would think it would depend slightly upon which person/people you poisoned. I would think that there are some politicians it might be downright jolly to have disappear due to cheese indulgence but no fear, it's not on my to-do list.
Seems we have like minds my dear!! XO
;D ;D ;D
Tiarella----I usually try to avoid confrontation---but when I see suggestions that can be very dangerous---a response is necessary----tasting for safety is a bad idea unless you are willing to wait several days for the results-----from the Mayo clinic----Foodborne botulism
Signs and symptoms of foodborne botulism typically begin between 18 and 36 hours after the toxin gets into your body, but can range from a few hours to several days, depending on the amount of toxin ingested. Signs and symptoms of foodborne botulism include:
Difficulty swallowing or speaking
Dry mouth
Facial weakness on both sides of the face
Blurred or double vision
Drooping eyelids
Trouble breathing
Nausea, vomiting and abdominal cramps
Paralysis
Another example---some Amanita mushrooms.
Yet what makes some amanita mushrooms so poisonous? Certain species of Amanita contain amanitin, a deadly amatoxin.
Amatoxins are some of the most lethal poisons found in nature. These toxins work by slowly shutting down the liver and kidneys. Often the victim will appear sick at first, and then seem to get better. Unfortunately the amatoxins are still at work, and death may occur anywhere from a few days to a week after ingestion.
Even a small ingestion can cost you a liver transplant. Taste testing for safety issues may be a very bad idea.
Qdog
qdog, that doesn't feel like a confrontation to me. It feels like the addition of information you have that I didn't have and I appreciate it. I was relaying the advice that I've seen elsewhere on the forum at various times. It's good to have your advice on this topic so thank you! Sooooooo, are there ways to test a cheese? without expensive lab tests?
There are test sets for E.Colli in milk: http://www.biooscientific.com/MaxSignal-E-coli-O157-Strip-Test-Kit (http://www.biooscientific.com/MaxSignal-E-coli-O157-Strip-Test-Kit). Couldn't find prices, but there seem to be more suppliers.
Tiarella----should have found a better word then " confrontational " I just don't want anyone to think I'm attacking their position---especially someone as good natured and hard working as your self. And I certainly don't want to discourage any one from making cheese----remember folks, botulism really is quite rare in cheese.
As far as other pathogens in cheese goes----I think prevention is the best attitude---knowing your milk source----and good make procedures.
Qdog
Quote from: TimT on June 05, 2015, 10:20:46 PM
All these comments are great! Even the ones telling me I'm crazy and should in no way do what I am going to do!
I'm not telling you not to do it. Just trying to bring to light the possible consequences of your experiments. We all have b linens and yeast floating around but, I understand you guys have a lot of other "nasties" floating around with them. In nature things have a way of imitating each other for survival. You could find it extremely difficult to tell the bad guys from the good guys. No one's wearing a white hat in the bacteria world. ???
Al,
Is B. linens that common? It appeared spontaneously on my blue, wasn't sure at first but then the smell developed and I was pretty sure it was a linens. Not orange, but a tan colored thing, and truthfully it's sorta welcome here. I'm hoping it finds and likes my current cheese. Afraid to transfer it from the blue since I don't want to risk bringing the blue to the party but if it finds it's way to this cheese I may use this one to smear to other future makes, it has good flavor and the smell isn't all that bad.
John
Personally I think early Australian brewers exaggerated the wild yeast problem not because there are more wild yeasts over here - or they're more dangerous - but because the weather conditions are often such that they favour wild yeasts, or normal brewing yeasts with ester production so high that the results taste wild.
Not sure about cheesemaking - but cheese bacteria seems pretty tenacious, really.
As regards testing for infections in wild cultured yoghurts and cheeses at home, well, all of the suggestions here are quite useful. Bubbling is a good sign of botulism (possibly wild yeast as well???! Not sure), smell is another good indication, etc. PH testing may not be out of the question.
Of course the aim would be to give the lacto-bacilli cultures in the milk just the right environment to acidify the milk quickly and efficiently, so that would be achieved using sterile equipment sealed off from the outside.
I'll let y'all know when I can take the next step!
B.Linens is very common, it's on your hands and all over your body. In fact it's the bacteria that is causing smelling feet, at least it's the same family....
I have a cheeseboard where it seems B Linens has taken up residence. Unfortunately some moulds seem to like it too so I can't use it as I was originally planning, as a 'starter' for a cheese with a B Linens rind. More's the pity
So, the great Catch A Wild Cheese Culture experiment is underway!
I bought a small 1 Litre bottle of raw milk. After having some for myself (mmmm creamy top) I poured the rest in clean freshly boiled jars.
I'm just keeping the jars the right temp by the water bath method, refreshing the bath as needs during the day.
So I've got one at thermophilic LB temps - around 40 degrees celsius - and the other at mesophilic LB temps, around 25 degrees celsius.
My main concern is overnight, with the current method, the thermophilic LB jar will lose a lot of heat unless I can find my damn yoghurt maker!
I'm going to give them both a good 24 hours to give the cultures a lot of time to really grow in strength.
Might use them in a simple cheese, like a Jack, that can be aged if needed, and I can taste the results ;D
I'd personally opt for something where geo or some other molds would be a normal part of the make. I got a feeling your gonna get some molds and yeasts falling into your "trap". Maybe a nice tomme.
John
I dunno. Is it common for raw milk cheeses to end up with moulds and other bugs? Do they play a part in the ageing process? There's a couple of other raw milk cheesemakers out there so maybe they can provide some feedback?
it's not just a raw milk cheese though is it? You're leaving it open to the environment in an attempt to capture wild microbes.
John
I've sealed the raw milk up until it cultures, so I don't think it'll catch anything else *touchwood*!
Well I guess it all depends. There is plenty of stuff free-floating so you may have caught something just in the pouring into the bottles but then the next chance to catch something is when the cheeses are aging. I had b. linens show up immediately on my first cheese....well not immediately but in a week in a new wine fridge that had never had cheese in it. It's a grand experiment and I'm glad you're doing it. I have enough raw milk that I've been making cheese specifically for our new chicks....they've been growing well on it. Why make cheese specifically for them? Well since it's a like a group of pirhanas (spelling?) feeding I want it to hold together but not be too hard to break up so I make a chèvre using more rennet than usual to make it a bit rubbery because they like to grab pieces and run around like crazy chicks, chasing, etc. Plain soft chèvre doesn't work quite as well and sticks to their new feathers and gets lost in the hay bedding, etc.
Oh yes. Feeding cheese to chickens. I've been there. Oh, yes I have. Know exactly what you mean :)
Okay, so so far we have mixed results.
One jar has cultured *very* well: it's about 4/5ths whey to 1/5th curds. The other jar doesn't seem to have cultured noticeably - just a bit of cream at the top.
The first jar was the one I attempted to keep at thermophilic temps, the second at mesophilic temps. Mind you, the temp control on both wasn't brilliant - the thermophilic one was probably kept at a temp of around 35 celsius for most of the day, and it dropped right down to around 10 degrees overnight. (Maybe I should assume I've got a mesophilic culture in the jar with some thermophilic notes!)
Mind you, I kept the mesophilic culture in the same water bath as our house yoghurt - and that's clabbered up nicely.
I'll keep trying to curdle it through the night and tomorrow.
So I'm wondering what I should do with my semi-thermo culture. I don't really use many thermophilic recipes. I had been thinking of doing a Jack cheese. What do folks say?
When you say it's "cultured" what do you mean? I don't expect to see whey as proof of culture...that happens after addition of rennet except when milks are thoroughly clabbered. Do you have a Ph meter? I don't but that would be one way to see if the cultures have gotten up to populations able to actively "work" the milk. I bet someone on this forum will have much better and concise info than I but just wanted to mention this..... ???
Well I didn't add rennet...
Honestly, after a day of culturing I would have thought whatever cultures are in there will have had time to get a strong hold. Bacteria would double their numbers pretty quickly - in an hour? - and will keep on doing that in the right conditions, which I've been trying to give them.
It sounds like quark. I make it by adding mesophillic starter (or buttermilk) to milk. I heat it to 31°C and let it sit overnight at ambient. After around 12 hours it separates.
Shane
I bet someone will have more info about your results. The one that showed whey, which jar was that? Did you see my post about Lackadaisical cheese? It's initial working name was "Cheese in a jar" because it was all native cultures that were in the raw milk and no heat, no nothing except a bit of rennet at some point, no fancy timing of phases, etc. I couldn't make hard cheeses this way but with the addition of Geo and PC I did make some Valencay style of cheeses.
The attempt at thermophilic culture clabbered; the mesophilic one is.... er, still working.
There's definitely not enough for cheese - I wasn't intending to have cheese at this point, just get myself a base culture. Which I think I do...!
Chevre is another kind of cheese made with little or no rennet, and it must often be made from fresh milk - I've never been game to make a non-rennet chevre but a lot of the recipes I read seem to be quite vague about the amounts of rennet used. For instance, one says '1/8th of a teaspoon rennet'. Yeah, good luck measuring that one out. (The trick is to make larger quantities - pour a teaspoon in a couple of cups of water, stir to dissolve, and then split it up - I like the absurdity of the precise-yet-tiny measure, though). Rikki Carroll's recipe for chevre just says 'chevre making kit' - which must include a special chevre culture. Not sure if it has rennet?!? Not being a USian I haven't been able to check!
The art of natural cheese making , by david Asher will be out for sale in a month or so , I know I look forward to what he has to say on the matter.
My thought would be that if you cultured to a yogurt like state for multiple times you should end up with something safe to eat.
Also raw milk farms are tested every few weeks for bad stuff so if you made cheese that is aged over 60 days you will hear about any recalls before it is time to eat .
Another point is that more people get sick and die by a factor of 10 from cured meats than from raw milk ,and we still put salami on our pizza and smile as we give it to our children
and your way more likely to get hurt driving to the store to get your raw milk than drinking it .
The point I am trying to make here is the the human brain is not rational when it comes to saftey , things we do often and don't get hurt that are dangerous and rationalized as safe and things we very rarely do and hear about some one dieing from cause us fear.
Not to say we should not talk about the risks just keep them in proportion to our daily risk quota
Bugs are everywhere good and bad and most science now no longer believes the "Pasture theory " of 1 bug and your sick , they now feel it takes an over load of bad bugs and an immune system that is not prepared and or run down for there to be disease / sickness.
And I have to say that when I drink raw milk I get that little voice in the back of my head that says take care it could be dangerous , but I just smile drink my milk and reach for my car keys .
Okay, I've made my first cheese from these cultures today!
I loosely followed a Jack recipe in Mary Karlin's book but because it included thermophilic culture as well as meso I had to heat the curds up more to give the heat-loving cultures a chance to really get working.
I was also a lazy bastard with the cheese and it had extended curdling time (about 1 hr), extended cooking time, etc.
So basically I reckon it'll be a wee bit more acidic than Jack cheeses normally are. I think this is probably advisable for a first run with wild cultures anyway, as it'll act as added protection against any other nasties that might come in the milk.
I've had a taste of both of the cultures and the curds and they've got a pleasant mild yoghurty taste. Nothing like the harsh metallic zing some cultures will have (our house yoghurt, villi, which I use for most of my cheeses, had this metallic zing when we first started it off but it's lost it now - not sure why). The thermo curdled VERY strongly - I wonder if this is because some rennet enzymes were in the milk and worked better at higher temps? The meso had a less even clabber, and the curdling seemed a bit uneven. But then I did shift the jar several times during culturing....
I guess both my yoghurt samples have plenty meso and thermo cultures ready, but I don't have room for three yoghurt/cheese cultures in the fridge! So maybe I'll keep the thermophilic - I need a thermo; and when I made it it would have gone through several 'cool' patches where the meso cultures could have established themselves anyway. And the meso did seem to take longer and had less impressive results. So I might chuck it, sadly.
Of course there's always the chance I've ingested some unnaturally cultured beast and if you're reading this, I'm already dead. Tell my wife I love her! The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few! And all that XXXX! But yeah. I think I've just got a plain bog standard yoghurt and all the scare stories we've been telling one another weren't true after all.
I haven't been on the forum in quite a while, but I was immediately drawn to this thread. I've experimented with natural and ambient culturing in the past and I'm interested in hearing other's experiences. I dig up the technique I've used for years for what I call "Old School Chevre." A couple of years ago I wrote it down. I never would have thought to do that until I started taking good notes on my main cheesemaking efforts:
CA137a. 7/1/13. Old school chevre.
2 qts. Raw Nigerian Dwarf goat milk. Morning milking
Leave at room temp . (On 7/1 started 70F rose to 84F)
Culture for 18 hrs. or until curd and whey have perfectly separated.
Ladle curd into cheesecloth. Tie corners. hang and drain 12hrs. Mix with 3/4 tsp. salt.
It's not very scientific, but I've made and eaten cheese from this 'recipe' more than two dozen times and I'm still here to tell you about it. The cheeses from this method have yielded varying results, surely based on the season, stage of lactation, length of coagulation, but mostly from the ambient cultures levels present that day. I too might have yogurt and kefeir culturing, bread rising, and sauerkraut bubling, among other things in the same kitchen on any given morning.
I've had results that ranged from delightful, through not bad and 'meh', down to the rare 'yuck.' I do recall a couple of occasions when the resulting 'cheese' want straight to the chickens or pigs because it smelled or looked a little off. I really don't think it would have made me sick, but why take a chance on something that I figured wouldn't taste good anyway.
The flavor has sometimes been more or less tart than I find in my chèvres from store-bought cultures. Go figure. I always got a good curd set, but if the culture had remained thin and milky I'd have dumped it. On occasion I would add a drop or two of calf rennet at the onset of I had some prepared heading into another make.
I never thought to reserve a bit at some stage to culture another make. That idea is intriguing. Successive cultures would bring the dominant strains to the forefront. I have however made renneted pressed cheeses using no starter culture, only raw goats milk. Those results were good for me so far.
I don't use these methods the majority of the time. Usually I am aiming for a specific result and utilize the control of commercial cultures. Once in a while though, it is fun to surrender to the whims and serendipity of nature in the raw.
By the way Tim T, how did your natural jack turn out?
I have been reading the book "cheese and microbes" by Catherine w Donnelly. And in there she mentions evidence of the fact that most of the starter cultures that are lab grown that we add to cheese are dead in the first 24 hrs to 48 hrs and are replaced by wild cultures that we have no control over .
I think that the biggest danger with cheese making is not in the use of wild cultures as all our cheeses will be wild soon enough if the research is correct , but the real danger is in soft cheeses that are aged to allow the surface rind to increase in ph to 7 or above , and then become contaminated .
That is my biggest fear as I love to make reblochons
Also we tend to walk around thinking that our stomachs and intestines are internal but really they are a long tube that runs through us that is completely external and are filled with wild things living on what we eat , so much so that scientist now speculate that we might never be able to leave the earth for multiple generations for space travel because we could not take our biosphere of microbes with us .
I love that book. It is a really good insight into most aspects of the cheesemaking process without being overly academic, aka DRY.
So you tried it? Are you going to experiment more?
Hello... Are you still alive?
Quote from: Schnecken Slayer on April 22, 2016, 11:27:55 AM
So you tried it? Are you going to experiment more?
Hello... Are you still alive?
Good question ! ;D
Jmason's last visit to the Forum was September 27, 2015. He had been quite active up to that time. Several months later I sent him a PM (no response) so maybe he IS dead or worse yet, his wife caught him making cheese. ;)
Reading from Tim's last post on down this thread has been marvelous! Thanks so much for the giggle ^-^
Quote from: Kern on April 23, 2016, 05:10:32 PM
Jmason's last visit to the Forum was September 27, 2015. He had been quite active up to that time. Several months later I sent him a PM (no response) so maybe he IS dead or worse yet, his wife caught him making cheese. ;)
Seriously though, I hope he is OK.
We, People, countries, cultures have always added something to make cheese, intentionally or not. There are cheeses that have added, you can tell if you smell and/or taste them. bacteria from human feet, armpits and from every thing or place that can be imagined.
To forbid this is to hold back the rain.