 Hi everyone, I'm Rita Peterson with Everything Homemade and this is the third video in the part series on how to make cheese. If you didn't see the video before, this I go in depth on mesophilic and thermophilic cultures, why we heat it, what's going on there, the whole entire process, what cheese is, you make with either or cultures, all of that. If you haven't right here on the screen, you'll see a link to that video you can pause me and take a look at that. So everything I explained in that video, I am actually going to do in this video. So this video we are actually going from the very beginning on how to actually make the mesophilic culture that I talked about previously. So I have a gallon of cinnamon milk, cinnamon is my milk house name. So this here has a sitting in the fridge for two days and you can notice the cream separation. So this is the cream here and this is the milk here. So remember this is a winter milk. So the cream usually comes down to here in the summer but I have less in the winter. I still got a fair bit considering she's a dexter cow. So what I'm going to do is show you how to take this cream off and I'm going to put it in this measuring cup. This is a little overkill on this measuring cup. Just because I have 17 cats in the house, we cat board. So all these cats are from everybody else and if I don't use something that has a lid, they will lick it all out and get sick. So my biggest ones have the lid. So use one that's closer. I mean I'm only going to be this full but again it's just so it sits on the counter and nobody licks it. So how do I do this? Very simply get a ladle. When you get a ladle, make sure if you take a look really close here, if you look at my ladle size, there's some room on the edges and you need that because some ladles are bigger than others. You don't want one exactly because when you lift it up, you're going to spill your cream. So a little bit smaller is better. So what I'm going to do is one, you never just take your ladle and scoop all the way to the bottom because you're going to mix your cream and your milk together and that will defeat the whole purpose of this. You take it and you just just right right in here, ocean and you just literally let the cream kind of fall into your ladle and then you ladle it into your measuring cup. And you can see how thick that is. Look at that, it just coats my ladle. That's a really beautiful cream. It's high and fat and that's what you need for butter making. Now if you don't have cream and like I do, you want like a 35% cream. So I just continue ladling now. If you don't know where you're at, take a look at how much I've ladle off. Now I'm down to here. So I'm about halfway. The other thing is eventually as you get closer to the milk, you can actually see the waterier milk part kind of start mixing with the cream because the cream's really heavy and you can definitely see the difference. Now just on my experience because I've done this countless times, I can tell when I'm getting close and take a look in here. I don't know if you could see this but I'm going to move my ladle for a moment. Can you see the actual kind of lighter bits and the cream? That's the milk. So I'm very, very close here to taking all the cream off the top. You take a look at that kind of swirl. That's there. That's the milk. So let's take a look at this side here. Take a look. The cream separation is like a quarter, less than a quarter of an inch. So I've got all the cream. So this is the cream and the biggest thing with making butter that you need to know is to warm up your cream. So I'll be six hours on the counter and the byproduct that we're looking for is the butter milk. So I know this is a repeat from a video because I've done how to make butter. But I'm really diving in depth and this is such an important part of cheese making that I figured for all those who don't know what buttermilk is and those who do know what butter milk is, it's just a little review. So this is the cream. It'll be six hours on the counter and then in six hours we'll get to making butter. So we're six hours later. My cream is nice and warm. So let's make butter. Now I'm using a blend tech and you need a fairly powerful blender for this. Blend tech Vitamix, those work the best if you're going blender wise. If it is a lower grade model, it'll take a little longer. Plus let me tell you, I've burnt out a blender a year before I got my blend tech. So it is very hard on your blender as well. I love using the blender. It works really, really slick. So I take the butter or sorry, take the cream. Now this here holds four cups. So if I had four cups, it would be up to here. And you got to leave amount of space because it will double in size. Okay, so let's do this. Let's not forget to plug it in at first. So I'm going to put this on low. Kind of a low medium. If you go too high, you will actually melt the butter because it gets too warm. So you want to keep it cool. So I'm going to actually go on the third setting here on my blend tech and just let it run. This is blender butter also so it's going to take a minute or two minutes where it turns the butter. So we'll see what happens here. It has a great buttermilk and still frosting. So I'm going to melt it next to more. I'm literally waiting for this decoration. Okay, see, I was not dropping up and down. It's in a different way. So it's about whipped cream stage. My blend tech cuts off after 50 seconds. Take a look what's inside. So far. It's not quite butter yet. So we need to go about another 50 seconds. So I'm going to slow it down because now we're at this stage that it's going to turn into butter. As you can see, the liquid here, this is the buttermilk coming out right now. So I'm going to check in another five seconds. I'll just take a look. You see those solids? That's butter. So basically just over a minute and we have butter butter. We have butter, okay. Okay. So what we need to do is you need to have a strainer and you need to have a bowl. Then we're going to strain this. So the butter is in the strainer. This is the precious buttermilk that we're after. And my kids are obviously going to love that mommy fresh butter here because fresh butter on toast. Okay, so we're going to dump the butter portion here. And I'm going to set this aside for a moment because I'll just show you how to clean this really quickly. So use cold water. Never use hot, you'll melt it. So I'm using cold water and I'm basically going to wash my butter. So I'm going to set it here. I'm going to squeeze out and the buttermilk is going to go into the water. And because this is winter butter, you notice that not all of it goes really nice. It's just because the cows aren't on fresh green grass. And it's a little paler than summer. But if you need buttermilk, it still works great. So again, I'm going to wash this until my water is clean. Right now it's cloudy and the buttermilk is coming out. Now why should I take out the buttermilk? Take out the buttermilk out of the butter because that's what's going to spoil. Watermilk spoils within 48 hours. Fresh buttermilk does. It spoils incredibly easy and quickly. So that's what's going to spoil your butter. And that's the reason why if I'm going to have butter for a week in the fridge, I will add salt. And salt acts as a natural preservative. If I want to freeze the butter, then what I want to do is I want to actually don't add salt because it won't freeze as solid. It'll actually spoil in your freezer. So you can see how clear this is. Look how clear that is. You can see right to the bottom. So that's a really indication that this is done. It's going to be the last washing. And then what I do, ocean, if you want to swing the other way just because I'm right handed here, what I'm going to do is I'm just going to press this right there. Get a little bit more of the water out. Okay, and then I'm just going to get my salt because I will put this in the fridge. Put a little salt in there. Just like so. Then I'm going to get a little container. I'm not going to use my butter container because just because I don't got that much butter here. I'm just doing this on demonstration. Oh man, I can't wait for summer. It's been such a long winter. I mean, we're October 31st right now, 2018. And we have been winter since we've been in winter since October, 2007. And we are still in 4 feet of snow and minus 22. So that is how you make butter. And that is how you get this wonderful culture that we need. Now what I'm going to do is I'm going to put a plate over this culture because what we need to do now is make a medium for this, oh, I got butter on my finger, for this buttermilk culture to grow into a mesophilic culture that we need into making for making cheddar cheese. So the medium is going to be milk. But in order to do that, we need to heat up the milk. So let's go do that. Okay, now that we have the buttermilk ready, now it's time to make the mesophilic culture. So what do we need for that? You will need a pot enough that will hold one quart or four cups. You'll need raw milk. You will need a measuring cup. You will also need a whisk and you will need some kind of thermometer that's very, very detailed because you need to be able to read this to 140 degrees Fahrenheit. You will also need a sterile canning jar which will be one quart again, four cups. You will also need an elastic and a little tea towel, something that you could put over the culture because the culture needs to breathe as it sets up. Okay, so that's everything you need to make the culture. You will also need a lid for your pot. In my case, so the cats and dust and stuff doesn't get into your milk as it cools off from sterilizing it. So let's begin. First thing you need to do is measure three cups. And this is again raw milk. Put it in your pot. Just set that aside. Now I'm going to put this hot plate on fairly high heat because I am not going to walk away from this pot. This is milk. Milk burns easy if you've never actually heated milk up without stirring it constantly. It will heat. Now I'm not stirring right now because I just turned on the hot plate so it takes a second to warm up. Obviously I have something burnt in my hot plate. But this here is going to heat up and you want to whisk this constantly. Now I have a cup here because I want to keep things sterile and the cup here is just keeping my whisk and my thermometer sterile. So I'm going to be whisking here, whisking and whisking for about eight minutes. It takes and what I'm going to do in that eight minutes is constantly whisk. But I'm also going to take its temperature now and then once it hits a hundred degrees Fahrenheit, I know that it's going to rise very quickly. This is what I tell my children because my children actually do this for me. They help me out here. I tell them that this milk needs to get here to 140. They know as they take the temperature, once it hits a hundred, it goes really, really quick. All right, and it ocean, do a lot of the initial sterilization and I'm actually teaching them once that at a time how to make all the dairy so they can definitely help out and they really enjoy it. So again, as I go, I just take the temperature. When I put the thermometer down, I'm not touching the bottom. I'm just kind of, if you want to get close up here, ocean, I'm not going straight down and hitting. Okay, I'm actually angling it just because my milk isn't as deep so I can read quickly. The temperature right now, I am about 75 Fahrenheit. And so I'm just going to, everyone, but this isn't a lot of milk. So it's going to go really quick. So I'm just going to stir away till I reach 140 Fahrenheit. Okay, so I am at 120 Fahrenheit, so I have 20 degrees to go. And I just want to make a note that this milk that I am using is raw from my cow and it is whole. So I have not removed any of the cream to make this culture. I just want to make a note of that really, really so, so you know, the other thing is is that if you have not, if you have questions, and go, well, why is she heating her raw milk up? Shouldn't she be adding just the culture? Wouldn't you want to raw the video before this in the series? I have talked in detail about the mesophilic and thermophilic culture and why you need to heat it up. And I go in detail. So this is the doing video before I will, I have explained it. So if you want to check that video out, it will be a link to it at the end of the video. There was also a link at the beginning of this video to it. And it's very important that you understand why some things need to get heated, why you can't always use raw, especially when we're making a sterile proper ever growing a culture. So I go into detail with that. I just really want to make a note because it is a common question that I ask about it. Okay, so our final temperature here is 140 Fahrenheit. Looks good. We take it off the hot plate and you can tell it just started to get really hot. That's exactly what we want. We want to take our tools, put them in my sterile cup, turn off the hot plate. Put the lid on it. And we are just going to literally now set this aside. And it will take oh, six, seven hours. So I like to do this in the morning. So that way my culture is ready around, my buttermilk is ready to be added into my sterile milk around supper time or evening. You're looking at it to drop to basically room temperature. You're looking at between 72 Fahrenheit to about, you can go as high as 80 Fahrenheit, but don't go any higher than that. But around that 72 to 80 Fahrenheit is the temperature you're looking at for it to naturally drop. You could put this in the fridge to speed it up if you want. Just pay attention that you don't drop it too cold. If you do, you'll have to heat it up again, just the 72 Fahrenheit. If you, that 72 Fahrenheit is 22 degrees Celsius, so you're looking at room temperature. And for me, I just set it aside, wait for it for the evening, check it and it is good to go. And then we'll finish it up by adding in the buttermilk. So we are about eight hours later and let's get this culture together. So this is the heated milk. And you notice that the cream is at the top. No big deal. Just mix it in. This is at room temperature. So just mixing in that cream. The next thing that I want to do is come over here. This is the buttermilk. Remember that when we made the butter, this is the buttermilk here. It's at room temperature also. Now, a word of advice here. I have put my buttermilk in the fridge and I'm taking it out and put it in room temperature sterile milk. No problem. It just takes a couple hours longer to set up the culture because the culture is cooled down even more because of the cold buttermilk, but it does turn out. So it's no big deal going, oh my goodness, it's not warm. No big deal. You can have both warm at room temperature, but the biggest thing is having your sterile milk at room temperature to start with. So what we're going to do is we're going to take a culture and we need a half a cup of culture. Okay, so I'm going to just put a half a cup of culture in here like so. And I'm just going to actually the rest of the buttermilk, I'm just going to make muffins out of. And then I'm going to take my three cups of milk. I'm going to pour it in here. The reason why I'm pouring it in here is because I will spill if I transfer from this pot into the canning jar just so I don't make a mess. So now I have just under four cups to be exactly three and a half cups. Now because I poured the milk in here, it's already mixed. I'm not going to worry about mixing it anymore. The last step we need to do is we need to grab our canning jar. And we need to pour this in here. Like so, perfect amount. Three and a half cups fills that just nicely. So what you want to do is grab a towel or a small tea towel, wash cloth, anything like that. And make sure that there is no bigger gaps like you wouldn't want to use something like this you guys. Because what will happen is if I put this over flies and bugs can get through this. So you want something woven very tightly where those nasty fruit flies or wherever area you are living, nothing gets in. So what you want to do is put the elastic and then I straighten it out. And I'm just making sure that there's no heavy bumps because these bumps, the flies can get in. So I'm just ensuring that all of this looks good. And my call to can breathe simple enough. Now what we're going to do is literally let it sit on the counter for 24 hours. It's going to set up and it should be like a not as thick as a yogurt, not as runny as a kefir right in between. So when I scoop it, it should be like a loose gel is what I'm looking for. And then I will show you what to do from there. But literally put it off the counter. Don't put it in sunshine. I'm literally going to take it here and just add a swing and right in the corner where it's not in any sun or bright light. And I will see you in 24 hours. So this is 24 hours later and I'm going to show you what this looks like. So take a look here. I'm going to scoop this and I'm quick. No, no, no, I have a cat who's interested in what I'm doing. All right, so I'm going to scoop this here and take a look. You see how it holds on the spoon, but it's much more liquidy than a yogurt. But yet it's thicker than some keyfers. I mean, sometimes you can get your kefir fairly thick, but it also sticks to the cream at the top separates to the top and sticks. If I go a little deeper, it's a little more runny, but that's what I want. And because I never skimmed off the cream, the top here is just a little bit heavier. And that's okay if the cream goes to the top. But that's the consistency you're looking at in your culture. So what do you do from here? Okay. One, I'm going to put my dirty spoon away. And two, you want to take this off now. Now you want to store it in the fridge. So I usually just use one of these lids. Now you can use a metal canning lid if you don't have a plastic ones. I really love these plastic ones for the wide mouth. Awesome. I'm so happy they made them. So I'm going to, it's a lot of times if I have a lot of these kind of containers in my fridge, I'll take a piece of painter's tape and I'll write cheese starter. And I'll kind of show you with the yogurt. You kind of see I have yogurt here labeled just so I don't get things mixed up because after a while everything looks white right in the fridge. So the other thing I want to mention now, yeah, this is your culture. So next time when you go to make your culture, if you wait till the very end, you'll have a half a cup after you use all this. This will make three or four cheeses. At the end here, what you want to do is do the exact same thing. Heat up three cups of milk, let it cool, and then use this as your culture. So you keep this culture going. You only have to start right from fresh buttermilk if you have no culture already set up. But you can start here again and again, making this culture again and again and again, which is really awesome. It lasts about two weeks in the fridge. And then after those two weeks, you really want to use up this culture and refresh it again because it starts to kind of go sour. So you got a two week window. The other thing is that let's say you want to back up in the fridge or in, yeah, back up basically. What I do is I can make a couple of these and I will freeze one entire one into ice, into into a tray of ice cube, like an ice cube tray. And what you do is about five ice cubes is equal to the same amount of culture you would add in your cheese. The pen's how much, but that's kind of what you're looking at. And it's just convenient to let say you're only making cheese once a month. Then you just pull out the ice cubes the evening before in a covered pot, let a thaw make your cheese in the morning. So that's an idea too with this culture. If I'm continuously making the making cheese, this goes, I go through this really fast. If I'm not, then I always have a backup in the freezer. Just in case this does sour and I don't got buttermilk right on hand. That's another idea. Same thing with your yogurt, same thing with that culture. You can make your yogurt and then you freeze that first batch of yogurt in. So you have a backup culture just in case your yogurt for some reason, soures or goes bad in the fridge. So that's a little talk here about buttermilk culture. Now we have this set up. Now the next step is to go through all the utensils and how to make a cheese press because the next step after that is actually making the cheese. But let's say first of all, we need to know what kind of utensils, what kind of cheese press we need in order to make that cheese. Thanks for watching. See you on the next video.