Once we decided we would only eat food if we could trace all ingredient sources I found a raw cow and goat milk dairy. We had a source for milk but what about kefir, yogurt, butter, sour cream and cheese? These were things we ate a LOT of.
Last summer I had bought the Home Cheesemaking Book by Ricki Carrol after seeing it mentioned in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and am finally getting great use of it.
I started with kefir by finding kefir grains through this kefir making group. While looking for a great kefir strainer I found Nick’s Natural Nook and moved on to live yogurt and buttermilk cultures after that.
If you are using raw milk you need to make a “seed” or “mother” with boiled milk to keep separate from what you plan to eat. If you always have the culture in raw milk, the enzymes and good bacteria in the raw milk will eventually weaken the culture. By bringing 1 cup of raw milk to a boil and then immediately turning it down and boiling for 3 minutes you destroy anything that might interfere with your culture. Once it has cooled you can then innoculate your boiled milk with the culture (1 tablespoons of yogurt or 1/4 cup of buttermilk.) and let it set on the counter until it sets up. This can take several days depending on the temperature of your kitchen. An easier way to do this is to buy pasteurized milk to use for your starter but use raw milk when you make what you plan to eat. That way you don’t have to boil the milk.
Once your seed is set up you then use it to make what you will eat, using the same amounts (1 tablespoon of yogurt culture to 1 cup of raw milk or 1/4 cup of buttermilk culture to 1 cup of raw milk.) You will need to re-culture your starter each week to keep it strong and keep any funkiness at bay.
Once your seed or eating dairy is set up (it will be semi-firm and sort of like panna cotta or soft set jello) place it in the refrigerator to prevent overculturing, or separation of the curds and whey.
I forgot to res-eed my culture one week and when I opened them they smelled very funky so I threw them out and purchased new ones. In retrospect they might have actually been ok. I have since re-read the directions from Nick and she mentioned that if they go longer than one week they start to smell “yeasty” but still re-culture a new batch just fine. I’m still slapping my forehead over that one.
One thing to remember – you need to keep all things fermenting a few feet from each other or the cultures will cross over and contaminate each other. This includes kefir, dairy cultures, or anything else you may have fermenting (like my apple cider vinegar and orange marmalade that wandered into the fil milk again!) They seem to do fine in the refrigerator in close proximity but not on the counter.
You can also make buttermilk and yogurt using a small amount from a store bought variety, as long as they say they contain “live active cultures” on the container. That’s not a bad way to start out, especially if your budget is already stretched thin. Kelly has some great instructions making buttermilk at her fabulous blog.
I do love the cultures I got from Nick though – the yogurt is sweet and clean, as is the buttermilk. They are nothing like anything you could buy at the grocers. I have the Piima yogurt, the fil milk and the buttermilk from her and I love them.
One final thought – this time I plan to freeze enough culture to start a new batch in case something should happen to my starter again. It should keep in the freezer for 6 months, at which point you would want to “re-seed” and freeze the new seed for another 6 months. Or you could give starter to several of your friends as a backup plan. Way better then Amish friendship bread. Way better.
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1 Whole Grain Buttermilk Coconut Pancakes // Dec 26, 2009 at 7:46 pm
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2 Cultured Dairy Products « Sustainable Eats // Dec 27, 2009 at 3:28 am
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