Hi all I wonder if any of you can help.
I have been making quark cheese now for about a year, I usually freeze my mother culture in ice cube bags and defrost the amount of culture I need for the amount of cheese Im making, unfortunately the freezer door was left open and the culture defrosted and I lost it all. I made a new batch of mother culture exactly as I made the original one using culture sachets, however I noticed it was a little lumpy and when I began to make cheese again and when I added the rennet the mixture never got to the stage were the curd was thick enough to cut, it was more like sour milk and very runny. I tried a couple of sachets to make up a new mother culture but the same thing happens all the time. I have not changed anything about the process of cheese making I use, the goats are still the same and there seems to be no problem with their milk, everything is sterilised and clean, I am stumped as to why this keeps happening. As I have said I used a couple of sachets of culture so it wasnt that one sachet was contaminated, might it be the milk? but it was perfectly fine before when I was using the original culture, as I had made loads of quark and gouda cheese.
Anyone got any ideas?
Brid