Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Liz" <liz@allslash.org>]



I'm curious in what way you feel the buttermilk is better than a standard culture. Are you using supermarket buttermilk, or making your own? I used buttermilk years ago when it wasn't as easy to buy cultures as it is now, but as soon as they became available to the home cheesemaker I began using them. I do have some buttermilk culture but haven't tried it yet. I only use raw milk for my cheese, so I'd kinda feel like I was "contaminating" it if I used commercial milk for a starter.

 

I age my cheddar and swiss and other hard cheeses for a year before opening them, but I've been making cheese long enough now that I've got many in various stages of aging.

 

Liz

Hi John - try using buttermilk for your meso culture - it makes fabulous cheese that is tasty right off the bat...much much better then using the dry cultures... and you can make a pressed cheese from buttermilk started milk without the rennet - that is how small curd cottage cheese is made...but I like it better with a little rennet...  Just made a nice stirred curd cheddar yesterday... smells really yummy.  We will wax it anyway and see if we can wait a month to open it....