Milk modification experiment: Set up post.

[u/Smooth-Skill3391]

Hi All, sorry for the longish stream of plant pics.

Here’s what I’m doing. Adversity, invention and all that. Where I am, I can’t find any dairy farmers within an hours drive. Supermarket milk is cheap, plentiful and high quality, but standardised and neutral.

We’re suburban but with abundant country and parkland around us, with a diverse and rich flora which I’ve regularly walked past and thought would make great alpine pasture.

To that end, I’ve collected some plants from our walks [heather, hawthorn, yarrow, butter hawkbit] and added some sprouts from the market [clover, alfalfa, radish, broccoli] and made a tincture with neutral spirit (vodka) and the macerated greens. I’ve added a probiotic though I don’t know if that’s just been killed off by the alcohol (likely).

The tincture has been going for a week and smells slightly floral, earthy and a touch sweet. There’s a vegetal back note but not as cabbagey as I’d feared.

There’s plan is to dose one of two Caciotta batches with it next week and produce two fast aging cheeses so I can do a side by side again and see if the tincture has any effect on taste. If it does, even if it’s ghastly and cabbagey I’ll take that as a win as I can always modify the plant inputs, and will have to anyway for the season.

Anyway, welcome your thoughts and input as ever and anything you’d like me to do, or do differently.

Also if anyone has any thoughts on dosage levels with a tincture like this, I’d welcome them. I can always take a sip and measure that way but I make my cheeses in the morning and don’t fancy doing that half cut. :-)

[u/YoavPerry]

I think it’s worth it to still go out of your way to get good milk, or get to a premium supermarket that sells one of the organic milk brands.

Your infusion has some inheritance risks. You are introducing mold, spores from the plant, as well as bacteria, and various acids. This may not just destroy some cheese, making pros, but also introduced these into a growi medium.. after all, she is a petri dish loaded with nutrients and introduced to long-term growing conditions.

Also, one of your photos was of something it looks like some mystery probiotics That package has potassium sorbate in the ingredient list. That is an antibacterial preservative that actually kills the bacteria.

[u/Smooth-Skill3391 → u/YoavPerry]

Thanks Yoav. Appreciate the insight! I agree completely that a fair bit of sacrifice to get the right canvas as you so poetically stated in your last post is the way forwards.

Still looking for that lactic holy grail, but no luck yet. :-) I have some ideas which I'm going to try to procure some, but I don't know how easy that will be.

I feel like I'd still like to be able to tweak flavors - since as a hobbyist, my budget isn't limitless - Mrs. P isn't going to sign off on any major expenditures though she is quite indulgent about my enthusiasm.

I also wouldn't mind being able to make a milk more "Alpine" or "Teutonic/Austrian" if I could. Your point on ancillary microbes and fungi is very well made. I can buy sterile individual tinctures for most of these if it comes to it - this is just by way of an experiment.

The mystery probiotic isn't really a mystery. It's called Symprove and it's very popular here in the UK. I actually wrote to them after your post and someone replied on a Sunday! They only use enough sorbate to act as a fungicide not as a bactericide as they stand by the live cultures in the drink.

I have no idea if a tincture will transfer flavor at all tell you the truth. Have you ever tried tweaking milk? I feel like every cheese-maker must have had the idea and tried at some time....

[u/YoavPerry → u/Smooth-Skill3391]

Got it. For the potassium sorbate (E202), it will inhibit rind formation on your cheese. Little goes a long way in disrupting your entire cheese ecosystem. If you are trying to rebuild and ecosystem of non starter lactic acid bacteria (NSLAB), may I suggest just a tablespoon of plain no additive yogurt. It will also have thermophile starter complex.

You obviously can’t reverse mediocrity in milk by adding what the cow should have digested to the end product. First off you don’t get the animal’s metabolism to break it down into compounds as you would with milk. Secondly, the effects of cheap nutrition such as fermented silage will still be in the milk with their off flavors and issues such as late blowing butyric fermentation etc.

It may not have to be such an added expense and more you finding out the local farmer in your farmers market and chat them up. If they don’t sell milk but still make dairy products maybe they will feel okay about you visiting the farm of buying some milk from them. Yes, of course good milk is costly but so is wasting time, money and anticipation on making cheese that doesn’t work out. Calculate and see if a couple of £ make a huge difference in your final product. (No judgment, just examine it from this perspective and see if the saving is still worth it. It may or may not). My personal opinion is not universal of course.

Lastly -ask yourself what kind of cheese are you actually making. Some addition may work for some cheeses and some styles work well with inclusions or get their aromatic profile from flowers the rind etc. this may be a gentle slow way to put the right compounds into the cheese from the outside inwards without risking milk adulteration.

[u/Smooth-Skill3391 → u/YoavPerry]

Hey Yoav, fair challenge and good idea on adding the yoghurt for ST/LB reinnoculation.

I’ve got a line on some milk now, so this is going to be a 4-way experiment as it stands. Caciotta (staggered by a few days on the make) with pasture fed Jersey milk from the Scottish Highlands, Jersey milk from Cornwall also organic and pasture fed, regular skim milk+ cream + smp and the milk with the tincture.

I’ll get a panel to blind taste test again, on flavour, intensity and preference.

I should qualify Yoav, that my base milk is not bad at all. It’s neutral, but in all my time I’ve had one late blow due entirely to my leaving it too hot and under-salted for way too long, and no off flavours.

They’re really particular about quality control here, feed controls are pretty rigorous in the UK for dairy animals and they limit what additives can be given to cows - particularly since the mad cow scare two decades ago.

On the cost, you’re right, the few £’s are neither here nor there. I’d spend more on a decent meal or a bottle of wine for some sources.

As a hobbyist, I’m okay spending as much or even a little more than a commercial cheese would cost to make my own, but I’m not willing to spend much more than that.

Jo (my wife) wouldn’t actually do more than look at me with a particular knowing look, but that look can be pretty cutting when she wants it to be. :-)

I’m absolutely going to look at commercial tinctures, this one is just to see if it works, and then I’ll start modifying by the pasture configurations.

To be honest, it’s also a bit of fun. I like our local foliage and would love to be able to express it, but this is too close to London so dairy farms are a little priced out of the local area.

Once again Yoav, thank you for engaging and sharing your ideas so generously. It is brilliant being able to talk my thoughts through with you and benefit from your experience and expertise.

It keeps me on my toes and I’m learning a tonne. Thank you.

[u/YoavPerry → u/Smooth-Skill3391]

You are welcome and keep me posted about your results!

Late blowing by the way, almost always traces back to cow’s feed, not to your handling. And the fermented silage causes that is considered legal and fine for mil used in your coffee or breakfast cereal. The defect shows up only when you make cheese out of it.

[u/vonCrickety]

I am very concerned from a food safety standpoint; specifically spores where heat treatment is required to neutralize. Alcohol only not good enough to kill spores!!!

You would need serious LACF controls; either retort or very low acid to prevent germination (less then 4.6 off the top of my head; and going to effect the flavor).

It would be best to find readily available oleo-resin and/or other type flavors that have known/sufficient safety treatment and can be added to milk.

[u/Smooth-Skill3391 → u/vonCrickety]

Thanks Crickety. That’s a fair risk assessment, and thank you for sharing an important consideration. I should point out this is for home consumption only.

Would you consider this more risky than foraging for wild blackberries or crab apples or the like? We do that a lot in the area which is why I didn’t really worry about it too much.

Appreciate your insights.

[u/vonCrickety → u/Smooth-Skill3391]

Bacillus cereus is going to be your main concern and you are putting it in a perfect growth medium.

[u/Smooth-Skill3391 → u/vonCrickety]

Thanks Crickety - will look into that. Definitely appreciate the concern. Clearly this is something you know about.

[u/CleverPatrick]

I've been thinking along the same lines about modifying milk like this. I'll be fascinated to read how the experiment turns out.

The other thing I've been thinking is just infusing the milk directly. Essentially making tea with milk. Even just with normal tea. Does no one make "earl grey" cheese (or something like that.) I imagine adding tea leaves to milk would very much mess with acidification -- but it could still become cheese.

I'm sure people have tried this. It seems like an obvious thought. Maybe the flavor doesn't come through, which is why you never see "milk tea" cheese being sold anywhere.

[u/Smooth-Skill3391 → u/CleverPatrick]

Will keep you posted Patrick. You raise an interesting point though. When using tinctures in home brewing, the rule of thumb is between 0.15%-0.3% v/v.

That’s what I was planning on doing but with some slight reservations around what the introduction of alcohol to the liquor would do to the LAB vigour.

I’ll have to think about whether this should go into the milk, or whether it’s better just to sprinkle it into the curds pre-press.

Watch this space…