Description
This Mesophilic Chevre Culture is a perfect way to use up a surplus of goats milk and just as good if you are buying milk.
Cheese cultures are used to make and ripen cheese, yogurt and Kefir. Culture is another name for groups of beneficial bacteria, naturally living in raw milk.
Adult humans actually have trillions of friendly bacteria swimming around in their gut.
The definition of ‘Bacteria’. Small single-celled organisms, found almost everywhere on Earth and are vital to the planet’s ecosystems. Some species can live under extreme conditions of temperature and pressure.
Which brings me nicely onto the difference between Mesophilic and Thermophilic cultures.
Chevre culture is Mesophilic. When your cheese making recipe requires low-temperature preparation, a Mesophilic culture should be used. Works best with temperatures around 32c – 90f. Suitable for most soft and hard cheeses.
Thermophilic cultures, on the other hand, require heating the milk to higher temperatures. Usually above 32c – 90f. Cheese making recipes typically requiring a Thermophilic culture include Swiss cheese, Parmesan, Mozzarella …..
These cultures are essential helpers and control the milk fermentation during the cheese making process. Fermentation means these cultures acidify the milk, converting milk sugar (lactose) into lactic acid. They are also responsible for the way your cheese will taste at the end of the maturing or aging stage.
We stock a wide variety to suit the home and small scale cheese maker. Including white, blue and red mould producing cultures.
Recipes often use the terms ‘Mesophilic’ and ‘Thermophilic’ so we have included this classification in our descriptions to make choosing the right culture easier.
All our cultures are freeze dried, tolerating long periods out of the freezer. The worst thing that can happen is moisture gets into the sachet and sticks the granules together.
Emma Parkin –
Excellent product – really easy to store and use, and makes delicious goats cheese.
Jen –
I might be doing smth wrong but after I added the sachet into the milk and left it for ~12 hrs, the curd did not form. Instead there were very fine flakes which went through the muslin ;(
Really sorry to hear that. Were you using non homogenised milk?
Heather Simmons (verified owner) –
You need to use unpasterised goats milk for this to work, I made the mistake of buying full fat milk from the supermarket as it was cheaper but didn’t work at all.
I also leave this for 2 days before draining & add one packet to 3 1/2 pints of milk.
Jacqueline –
Fantastic product. Very easy to use, produces delicious goats cheese which won first prize and a special rosette in the local show on only my second batch. I used local goats milk which had been pasteurised by the Long Time Low Temp method.
Jacqueline Shirtliff –
I tried this starter again with Delamere semi-skimmed goats’ milk from the supermarket alongside another batch from our local Farmers Market goats’ milk. 1 litre to 1/4 packet of starter. Both worked really well and you couldn’t tell the difference between them in taste.
Jenny Thirsk –
This product is fantastic – I’ve been using it for years with great results. I’d like to know if the rennet content is vegetarian?