Cheese Making Cultures

The most commonly used cheese making cultures are mesophilic and thermophilic cultures.  You can make both of these easily right in your own home.  

Mesophilic Culture

Cheese cultures inoculate your milk with friendly bacteria. This is what gives cheese its taste, and it helps the milk coagulate or turn into curds. Mesophilic culture is for cheeses cooked at intermediate temperatures. I use the mesophilic culture more than any other type.

1. Start with 2 cups of FRESH store bought cultured buttermilk (it will say cultured on the carton).

2. Let the buttermilk reach room temperature or about 70 degrees F.

3. Allow it to ripen for 6-8 hours at room temperature.

Hint: If you take it out of the refrigerator after supper, put it in a container with a lid, then leave it out over night, it will be ready to work with by the next morning. The buttermilk will now be thicker and more sour than what you started out with. It should have the consistency of fresh yogurt. If it doesn't, let it sit for a few more hours.

4. Shake or stir the culture well. Pour this culture into a clean ice cube tray, full sized. Put it in your freezer. Once it is solidly frozen, separate and remove cubes from tray and place in a zip-lock freezer bag or a container with a lid.

5. Each cube is about 1 ounce of mesophilic starter for future recipe purposes. Label the container so you don't get it mixed up with other cultures. Add thawed cubes to your recipes as required (thawing takes about 30 seconds in the microwave). Cubes will keep for at least a month and probably as much as three months or more in the freezer, depending on how well you have them sealed.

To make starter the next time, add one thawed cube to 2 cups of fresh milk, mix thoroughly with a wire whisk. Allow to stand at room temperature for 16-24 hours or until the consistency of fresh yogurt and freeze as above.

Thermophilic Culture

Cheese cultures inoculate your milk with friendly bacteria. This gives the cheese its flavor, and helps coagulate the milk and turn it into curds. Thermophilic culture is used for cheeses cooked at higher temperatures.

1. Heat 2 cups of fresh milk to 165 degrees. Be careful not to heat it too high or scorch the milk, then let cool to room temperature or at least down to 125 degrees. If you are sure of your milk source, pasteurizing as above is optional; and you can start with 2 cups of fresh milk.

2. Add one heaping tablespoon of FRESH yogurt, homemade or store bought. If you buy from the store, make sure it says "live and active culture" on the box -- and it must be plain yogurt. You can add a couple of tablespoons if you wish. Mix it into the milk thoroughly.

3. Keep the mixture at 110 degrees F for 8-10 hours or until a firm yogurt has set. I used to do this in my crock pot. Put the mixture in a sealed, water-tight container, mason jar, zip-lock bag, etc., then put 110 degree water in your crock pot. Put the container with the culture into the water, put the lid on your crock pot, set it on low, and leave it alone. You may want to experiment with your crock pot to make sure the low setting will keep it at 110 degrees. Since we started this, my husband bought me a yogurt machine; so now I just use that. It can also be done with the same type of water bath method on the lowest setting of your electric range.

4. Pour the culture into a clean full sized ice cube tray and place in the freezer. Once frozen, separate the cubes and put them in a sealed container or freezer bag. Label the container so you don't get it mixed up with your other cultures.

5. One cube is about 1 ounce of thermophilic starter. Add thawed cubes as needed to your recipes. 30 seconds in the microwave will thaw a cube. Cubes will keep for somewhere between one and three months (maybe more) in the freezer, depending on how well you have them sealed.

To make more starter, simply thaw one cube and add that instead of the fresh yogurt using this same recipe.