# Culturing Buttermilk



## Lorelai

Or, clabbering milk. I recently borrowed _Goats Produce Too!_ through ILL from my library. My own copy is on its way. :clap: Anyway, many of her recipes call for cultured buttermilk, either instead of a culture, or as a potential substitute. I'm all for buying less and using fresh raw milk, which I have in abundance. I'm not sure if I can buy cultured buttermilk around here to start my own, so I'm attempting to start from scratch, by clabbering fresh raw milk. Anyone had success doing this? I'm following these instructions: 

How To Make Buttermilk | Food Renegade

What exactly does clabbered look like, anyway? The instructions say the first milk might take days to clabber, and then should get steadily more predictable, where it's clabbering in about 24 hours. That sound right?

I know I've had a lot of questions lately... thanks for putting up with them!


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## Mountain Mick

Home Made Culuted Buttermilk
by Mick Blake 1999
Once you made homemade culuted buttermilk you will never want that muss produced crap that is storebought cultured buttermilk which is really only sour milk whit vinegar in it. This is thick and creamy and tangy and perfect.
Ingredients
Â½ cup cultured buttermilk (from the store or home cultured) 
1.8 litres skim, that 2%, real milk or whole milk from the supermaket or fresh cow or goats milk
and you will need a 
1 clean, dry 3 liter bottle or masson jar with a tight fitting split or two piece lid. 
Instructions

now this is the KISS method you just simly pour buttermilk Â½ cup into your clean bottle or masson jar. Top off the bottle or masson jar with your plain milk. Tightly screw lid to the bottle or masson jar and shake like billo that means vigorously for a minute or two. Place in a warm spot on your kitchen bench not areally hot area plus out of direct sunlight. Let it stand there for 12 to 24 hours and yes leave it alone it will work just keep your sticky fingers of the bottle, yes you can check it after 12 hours to see to it's thick enough it not wait until it is thickened. Put into refrigerate when it is ready nice and thick & tarty to the taste. Use it up within two weeks.amd don't forget to start a new before you you it all up and you can repeat indefinitely just by fallow these simple few steps . Now that one less thing you need to cart home from the store. 
Now notes that now you are making home made culuted buttermilk you can now make your own sour cream & crÃ¨me fraÃ®che

Hope it helps MM


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## BlackWillowFarm

Lorelai said:


> What exactly does clabbered look like, anyway? The instructions say the first milk might take days to clabber, and then should get steadily more predictable, where it's clabbering in about 24 hours. That sound right?


Those instructions are correct. Keep making a new batch everyday until the milk clabbers (thickens) in 24 hours. By then it should taste tart but not bitter. At first you might have some bitterness in the milk as it clabbers but by making a fresh batch each day with a small amount of the bitter clabber, the good bacteria will eventually overcome the bad and you'll end up with a starter you can keep alive by repeating the process. Once you have your starter culture you should be able to make a new batch every 24 hours. You can also use this clabbered milk to make cheese in place of purchased cultures.


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## jwal10

1 tablespoon lemon juice to a cup of milk. But I like buttermilk from sweet cream butter better. I DON'T like clabbered sour buttermilk....James


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## Lorelai

BlackWillowFarm said:


> Those instructions are correct. Keep making a new batch everyday until the milk clabbers (thickens) in 24 hours. By then it should taste tart but not bitter. At first you might have some bitterness in the milk as it clabbers but by making a fresh batch each day with a small amount of the bitter clabber, the good bacteria will eventually overcome the bad and you'll end up with a starter you can keep alive by repeating the process. Once you have your starter culture you should be able to make a new batch every 24 hours. You can also use this clabbered milk to make cheese in place of purchased cultures.


Okay, now my milk is looking like it might be clabbered. It has separated a bit, so it looks kind of like there is whey on top, and it's chunkier than it was a few days ago. Is this when I get to measure out 1/4 cup of that mixture, and add fresh milk to it, to wait for it to clabber again? It took a few days for my milk to reach this point. Yesterday it didn't look quite there yet, but when I opened it, it smelled a bit off. To be expected, perhaps, with milk that's been sitting covered on the counter for a few days. :shocked:



jwal10 said:


> 1 tablespoon lemon juice to a cup of milk. But I like buttermilk from sweet cream butter better. I DON'T like clabbered sour buttermilk....James


Well, I'm mostly just intending it for cheesemaking, and maybe baking. It shouldn't be exactly sour when it's fully cultured, should it? More tart?


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## BlackWillowFarm

Lorelai said:


> Okay, now my milk is looking like it might be clabbered. It has separated a bit, so it looks kind of like there is whey on top, and it's chunkier than it was a few days ago. Is this when I get to measure out 1/4 cup of that mixture, and add fresh milk to it, to wait for it to clabber again? It took a few days for my milk to reach this point. Yesterday it didn't look quite there yet, but when I opened it, it smelled a bit off. To be expected, perhaps, with milk that's been sitting covered on the counter for a few days. :shocked:


Yep, you have clabber. :rock: Now you can mix it with fresh milk and wait for it to clabber again. Don't use it for anything until all the bad taste is gone. It might take a couple more exchanges of milk. You may not like the taste of it, but it won't taste off or bitter or bad. Basically you're letting the good bacteria in the milk overpower the bad bacteria. Depending on your milk, and the stuff in your air, it could happen overnight or take several days. Oh, and don't cover the container with an airtight lid. It needs to breathe. I usually put a dishcloth over the top with a rubber band to hold it on.


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## Lorelai

BlackWillowFarm said:


> Yep, you have clabber. :rock: Now you can mix it with fresh milk and wait for it to clabber again. Don't use it for anything until all the bad taste is gone. It might take a couple more exchanges of milk. You may not like the taste of it, but it won't taste off or bitter or bad. Basically you're letting the good bacteria in the milk overpower the bad bacteria. Depending on your milk, and the stuff in your air, it could happen overnight or take several days. Oh, and don't cover the container with an airtight lid. It needs to breathe. I usually put a dishcloth over the top with a rubber band to hold it on.


Oops... the directions said to cover and shake to mix, so I assumed cover with a lid, so I used one of my plasic lids that fits my wide mouth jars (in this case, I used a pint). So there's air in there, because the pint is not full, but perhaps not enough? Do I need to start over, or can I just cover it more loosely from here on out?


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## BlackWillowFarm

Lorelai said:


> Oops... the directions said to cover and shake to mix, so I assumed cover with a lid, so I used one of my plasic lids that fits my wide mouth jars (in this case, I used a pint). So there's air in there, because the pint is not full, but perhaps not enough? Do I need to start over, or can I just cover it more loosely from here on out?


You have to mix it in well with the fresh milk so shaking it up in the jar works fine. After you're done, just take the lid off and cover it with something that can breathe.


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## Mountain Mick

:buds:Hi, yes this was apart I forgot to paste in:ashamed:... unscrew lid and I use cheesecloth and rubberbands to cover the bottle/masson jar so the culture can breath or remove the center of the split lid and put a piece of cut flymesh in the lid and screw the outter lid back on.


My post should have read like this. and no more Apple Cider while anwsering post again:ashamed::buds::buds:

Home Made Culuted Buttermilk
by Mick Blake 1999
Once you made homemade culuted buttermilk you will never want that muss produced crap that is storebought cultured buttermilk which is really only sour milk whit vinegar in it. This is thick and creamy and tangy and perfect.
Ingredients
Â½ cup cultured buttermilk (from the store or home cultured) 
1.8 litres skim, that 2%, real milk or whole milk from the supermaket or fresh cow or goats milk
and you will need a 
1 clean, dry 3 liter bottle or masson jar with a tight fitting split or two piece lid. 
Instructions

now this is the KISS method you just simly pour buttermilk Â½ cup into your clean bottle or masson jar. Top off the bottle or masson jar with your plain milk. Tightly screw lid to the bottle or masson jar and shake like billo that means vigorously for a minute or two. Place in a warm spot on your kitchen bench not areally hot area plus out of direct sunlight :buds:unscrew lid and I use cheesecloth and rubberbands to cover the bottle/masson jar so the culture can breath or remove the center of the split lid and put a piece of cut flymesh in the lid and screw the outter lid back on:buds:.
. Let it stand there for 12 to 24 hours and yes leave it alone it will work just keep your sticky fingers of the bottle, yes you can check it after 12 hours to see to it's thick enough it not wait until it is thickened. Put into refrigerate when it is ready nice and thick & tarty to the taste. Use it up within two weeks.amd don't forget to start a new before you you it all up and you can repeat indefinitely just by fallow these simple few steps . Now that one less thing you need to cart home from the store. 
Now notes that now you are making home made culuted buttermilk you can now make your own sour cream & crÃ¨me fraÃ®che

Hope it helps MM :viking:


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## Lorelai

Okay, so I took about half of the original clabbered milk and mixed in about a cup of fresh raw milk, shaking vigorously for a couple minutes before replacing the lid with one that "breathes." I expected to have to wait for results, but less than 24 hours later, the entire mixture has that separation/chunky thing going on again. So I repeated the process. It just seems to be happening really quickly already. Here is the silly question... when the buttermilk culture is successfully culturing the fresh milk, does it have to be shaken smooth, so to speak? Will it always separate and have that chunkier aspect to it? When can I start refrigerating/using the culture for cheese? My rennet should be arriving today, and I'm eager to start! But I certainly want my cultured buttermilk to be right first. It doesn't smell bad, just kind of fermented, though I haven't gotten up the courage to actually taste it yet. :ashamed:


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## BlackWillowFarm

Lorelai said:


> Okay, so I took about half of the original clabbered milk and mixed in about a cup of fresh raw milk, shaking vigorously for a couple minutes before replacing the lid with one that "breathes." I expected to have to wait for results, but less than 24 hours later, the entire mixture has that separation/chunky thing going on again. So I repeated the process. It just seems to be happening really quickly already. Here is the silly question... when the buttermilk culture is successfully culturing the fresh milk, does it have to be shaken smooth, so to speak? Will it always separate and have that chunkier aspect to it? When can I start refrigerating/using the culture for cheese? My rennet should be arriving today, and I'm eager to start! But I certainly want my cultured buttermilk to be right first. It doesn't smell bad, just kind of fermented, though I haven't gotten up the courage to actually taste it yet. :ashamed:



It will always be thicker and some whey can show up around the edges. It's good that it's happening fast. If it doesn't smell bad then it's probably good to go. What kind of cheese are you making?


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## Lorelai

I'm going to begin with chevre. The recipe I'm following is from _Goats Produce Too!_ 

5 quarts whole goat milk
1/2 cup cultured buttermilk
2 T diluted rennet (dilution 3 drops liquid rennet into 1/3 cup cold water)

Will diluted rennet keep? Also, I ordered the organic vegetable rennet from the New England Cheesemaking Supply Company, because it had minimal additives, and I think I remember it saying that it's double strength rennett. Any experience with that, by chance?


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## BlackWillowFarm

I've never used double strength rennet so I can't help there. I'm not familiar with making a dilution then not using it all in your recipe. Seems a little wasteful, but not too bad. My cheese book says 2 drops rennet for each 1 gallon of goats milk. All the recipes I use call for so much rennet diluted in so much water and use it all. The reason for diluting is to incorporate the rennet into the milk easier. Undiluted it might curd too fast before you get it mixed into all the milk. I'll make a suggestion for you to try later after you've become more comfortable making chevre. Use the two drops of rennet in two tablespoons of water. It sounds like that's approx. what you're doing anyway.

Have fun!

Let us know how it turns out.


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## Lorelai

I may just do that, because I don't like the idea of wasting it either. It also seems unnecessarily complicated for the brand new cheesemaker, but that's just my opinion. I probably also made it more complicated for myself by choosing the rennet I did... on the bottle it says to reduce the rennet called for in a recipe by 1/3. I majored in English, people! Too many fractions and dilutions make my head hurt.  I guess maybe that means just 1 drop per 1/3 cup of water instead of 3 drops. My supplies arrived just now (super fast - I ordered late Thursday night), so I can try chevre anytime now. Or maybe I'll try to find a different recipe, maybe one that actually calls for my type of rennet to reduce the amount of thinking I have to do. :ashamed:

If it's possible to hijack one's own thread, I think I've successfully done it. Going back to the buttermilk... how do I know when I can use it? Because I can't actually make my chevre until it's ready. It appears to already be clabbering in 24 hours. I guess I just feel unsure about the chunks still present. Maybe I have an unrealistic picture in my head of what this buttermilk is supposed to look like, but I'm picturing something thicker than milk, but smooth, kind of like kefir or yogurt (the no added thickener kind). Or should those globs be strained out and used to culture more milk? I haven't done kefir yet, but that's probably where I'm getting that idea. Or do I just need to shake the buttermilk to reincorporate any chunks or whey that have separated? 

Thanks for your patience... I tend to be an overthinker, can you tell? :smack


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## Mountain Mick

Hi, yes you can get double-strength liquid vegetable rennet, 

But here a quick Chevre Cheese with Cultured buttermilk. Chevre means Goat os Chevre Cheese is simply Goats Cheese, but they are fresh farmers soft cheeses.

&#8226;2 Gallons of Goat Milk

&#8226;1/4 Cup of Cultured Buttermilk 

&#8226;1/2 Tablet of Rennet (equivalent to 2 drops of liquid rennet) 

&#8226;1-2 Teaspoons of Salt 

&#8226;1/4 Cup of Warm Water

STEP1 Warm the milk to room temperature (68-70 Â°F), 
STEP 2 Dissolve 1/2 of the rennet tablet in 1/4 cup warm water, 
STEP 3 Stir in the buttermilk and mix thoroughly, 
STEP 4 Stir in the rest of the rennet and mix thoroughly, 
STEP 5 Cover and let it sit for a total of 24 hours, 
STEP 6 After 24 hours, check the mixture for clean breaks, 
STEP 7 At this time, the curd should be firm enough to cut into 1/2 inch cubes, 
STEP 8 Next ladle the curds into a sterile cloth located suspending above a colander, STEP 9 Place that in a refrigerator or cool place for 24 hours, 
STEP 10 After the 24 hours has passed, the whey should all be drained, 
STEP 11 Next add about 1-2 teaspoons of salt, 
STEP 12 Cover and place in the refrigerator, IMPORTANT NOTE 
The Cheese will not last much longer than two weeks.

This a from David B. Fankhauser, Ph.D 
FANKHAUSER'S
CHEESE PAGE

nice cheese, we like it rolled in garlic & fresh herbs or in Candied citrus peel and roasted pine nuts MM


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## Mountain Mick

P.S how did we go from making buttermilk to making soft goats cheese?? MM


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## BlackWillowFarm

I think of buttermilk as the leftovers from making butter. Sweet cream buttermilk will have a texture almost like skim milk but cultured butter will yield the tart, thick buttermilk we're all familiar with. 

What you've been doing is clabbering milk by allowing the naturally occurring good bacteria in the milk to multiply, overtake the bad bacteria and thicken (clabber) the milk. If this is also considered buttermilk, I wasn't aware of that. The clabbered milk then becomes your culture for making cheeses. Use the clabbered milk in place of a purchased culture. It should work just fine. You can also keep back some of your homemade culture by freezing it and use it in other recipes too. It will stay good in the freezer for a long time.


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## Lorelai

Mountain Mick said:


> P.S how did we go from making buttermilk to making soft goats cheese?? MM


The what: culturing buttermilk the hard way, using only fresh raw milk. I'm making a fermented milk product. The why: to make my own cultured buttermilk for cheese. I'm starting with simple soft cheese.



BlackWillowFarm said:


> I think of buttermilk as the leftovers from making butter. Sweet cream buttermilk will have a texture almost like skim milk but cultured butter will yield the tart, thick buttermilk we're all familiar with.
> 
> What you've been doing is clabbering milk by allowing the naturally occurring good bacteria in the milk to multiply, overtake the bad bacteria and thicken (clabber) the milk. If this is also considered buttermilk, I wasn't aware of that. The clabbered milk then becomes your culture for making cheeses. Use the clabbered milk in place of a purchased culture. It should work just fine. You can also keep back some of your homemade culture by freezing it and use it in other recipes too. It will stay good in the freezer for a long time.


My understanding of the instructions (linked in the OP) is that I'm clabbering milk in order to make my own starter buttermilk culture, without having to buy it. I'm not sure if I can get real cultured buttermilk in my area, and I would like to be more self reliant. That's the simple answer to why I'm doing what I'm doing. That said, I'm wishing I'd ordered some buttermilk starter culture along with my rennet. It would have been a lot easier.


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## BlackWillowFarm

How did your cheese turn out?


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## Lorelai

BlackWillowFarm said:


> How did your cheese turn out?


I chickened out and made mozzarella. :ashamed: Which turned out pretty well, for a first timer, I think! I kind of let my buttermilk project get away from me, so I think I have to just start over, and this time, I think I'll start with cultured buttermilk from the store, and add that to my raw milk. Then, when I'm more comfortable with what cultured buttermilk is supposed to look and taste like, I may attempt this project again.


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## backwoods

Fankhauser's Cheese Page
this is a great site on cheese making, including making cultured buttermilk to making about any cheese you'd want. I have used it extensively and it always turned out great.


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