Culture, part 1

No, this is not going to be a big post about society and its role in the de-evolution of our health.

This is a post about milk. And bacteria. And putting things in a controlled state of rot.

Yep, I've decided to explore the tradition of culturing dairy products to make cheese, whey, and a variety of lacto-fermented vegetables and beverages. This is as old as food culture gets, practiced in various forms all around the world for thousands of years. You can do some internet research if you want to find out more - I will also elaborate on some of the health benefits in later posts. Hopefully this experiment will result in a wide variety of new, healthy recipes I can share with all of you. It could also result in me poisoning myself. I'm hoping for the former.

Don't worry, I'm mostly kidding. I've been told that if the process goes bad anywhere along the way, it is immediately obvious with a smell test, and then nothing on heaven and earth can persuade a sane person to consume the results.

I'm starting simple - making cultured buttermilk. I ordered my cultures from the New England Cheesemaking Supply Company, which were delivered promptly. I secured a bunch of mason jars, some decent milk, and was ready to go.

The process was extremely easy. I poured a quart of milk into one of my jars and placed it in a pan of simmering water until the milk reached room temperature. I then dumped in one packet of buttermilk culture, mixed it in... and was done. Anna, my culinary partner-in-crime, and I waited for something dramatic to happen. We were disappointed.

Not very exciting.Supposedly, I only need to keep the milk out at approx. 75 degrees for 24 hours during which it will thicken up a bit. Next steps will be to allow whey and curds to separate, drain the whole thing, eat the cream cheese, and use the why to ferment some vegetables. That'll take a few days - check back then for an update!

12 hours in - starting to thicken a bit!

Comments

[Andrew So]

Bah. Real milk comes from a cow.

Also, I thought the image of you and Anna staring at milk so was cute that I tried to save it to my hard drive but your blog won't let me dl it. Whatever.

[Colin Pistell]

Hah! Actually, the whole cheese/whey process works best when starting with raw milk, but raw milk is illegal in North Carolina. In order for pasteurized milk to work, you need to add a culture back in to replace all the good stuff pasteurization destroys.

...and check your email :)

[Josh]

did you use raw milk?

[Colin Pistell]

Raw milk is illegal in North Carolina. Silly. I would love to use raw milk as it eliminates the step of re-culturing pasteurized milk. The reason I chose buttermilk is that it is supposedly the easiest of the cultured milks to make, and works pretty well if you're using pasteurized milk.

[Steven Stanfield]

Isn't cultured dairy fun! Once you get your buttermilk done, just add some to a cup of heavy cream and in a short time you get Creme Fraiche (sooo delicious!) You can also get whey from taking a cup of yogurt and hanging it in a few layers of cheese cloth with a bowl below and the whey will drain out of it and then you can use what's left as cream cheese. Good luck with all of your fermentation adventures.