[Cheese] Subbing pastuerized milk + culture for raw milk?

[Erica Schechter]

Jason, if you haven't already, I /highly/ recommend reading the email
I received from a scientist, where he argues that subbing pasteurized
milk for raw milk can be done with little ill effect. It is at
http://thecookseys.net/email.txt , and he makes a very compelling
argument.

Unfortunately, it is very difficult to find unbiased research on raw
milk. It seems that much of the research on both sides is nearly
fanatical and almost religious. The key thing to remember is that
using a good starter culture will have by FAR more effect on the
flavor than native lactic enzymes.

The thing you must remember about cheeses is that cheese making is an
art that dates back centuries. Thus, each type of cheese is rooted
largely in tradition. You may have noticed in your research that
recipes for two different cheeses are nearly identical. Defining
characteristics of a type of cheese may include the size, the shape of
the mold, or the amount of milk. However, this does not necessarily
need to translate to make a fine cheese at home. A brick cheese made
in a round mold can still be delicious. You do not have to milk a cow
in the evening and in the morning to make double gloucester.
Similarly, just because 15th century monks made muenster with raw milk
does not necessarily mean that you have to, or that the cheese won't
taste right with pasteurized milk.

On the other side of the coin, the FDA requires that all raw-milk
cheeses be aged 60 days or more. So for liability reasons, your book's
author may suggest using pasteurized milk for fresh cheeses. This does
not necessarily have to do with the flavor.

For a peccorino, using a strong kid lipase, a good thermophilic
culture, and a significant aging period will make a lovely cheese with
pasteurized milk. By the way, the first two can be bought from
http://www.dairyconnection.com

I think that a lot of the mystique surrounding raw milk cheeses is a
case of conflating correlation with causality. Small artisan farms who
pay attention to detail are more willing to use raw milk. Alternately,
big factories who wish to streamline the process will choose
pasteurized milk. So I think that a lot of peoples' wonderful
experiences with raw milk cheeses might have more to do with the
talented artisans rather than the milk itself.

--Erica

On 1/7/06, Jason Molinari <jasonmolinari at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Jack, right, but i'm trying to figure out which
> cultures to use for cheeses in my book which require
> raw milk. An italian Toma for example or a pecorino...
>
>
> --- Jack Schmidling <arf at mc.net> wrote:
>
> > Jason Molinari wrote:
> > > Ok, as soon as i start making them i'll ask what
> > > culture to use..right now i'm sticking to cheeses
> > that
> > > use pasteurized.
> >
> > For basic cheeses, there are two generic types of
> > starter:
> >
> > Mesophylic and thermophylic and these names indicate
> > the temperature
> > that they thrive best at.  Meso is sort of medium
> > 100F and thermo is
> > higher, usually over 110F.
> >
> > Most soft cheeses and Cheddar types use meso.
> >
> > Swiss, Mozz are examples of those that use thermo.
> >
> > The variations of the two types are the details but
> > any basic type will
> > work and produce cheese of the generic type.
> >
> > js
> >
> >
> > --
> > PHOTO OF THE WEEK: http://schmidling.com/pow.htm
> > Astronomy, Beer, Cheese, Fiber,Gems, Sausage,Silver
> > http://schmidling.com
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Cheese mailing list
> > Cheese at hbd.org
> > http://hbd.org/mailman/listinfo/cheese
> >
>
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