Meso Cheese Cultures decoded

A while back I made up these flash cards of the bulk cheese cultures (from the dairy connection) I use and how they translate to those cute little packets they sell at New England Cheesemaking Supply.  I use this information all the time and I was thinking maybe someone out in cyberspace would find it useful too. Who knows.  I'd love it if you'd leave me a comment if this helps you.  It's nice not to feel like you are connecting :)

Here goes:
Mesophillic MA019- for hard and fresh cheeses.  Makes Cheddar, Colby, Feta, Chevre, etc. 

• Dose:
• 1/8 tsp to 1 gallon, 
• 1/4 tsp to 2-5 gallons 
• 1/2 tsp to 5-10 gallons milk.  
• Milder than MM100
• Cultures:
• L. lactis
• L. cremoris
• Replaces:
• Mesophillic Starter
• Mesophillic DS

Mesophillic MM100- for fresh cheeses. Makes Camembert, Gouda, Feta, Blue, Chevre and others where buttery flavor and/or eye formation is desired 

• Dose:
  
• 1/8 tsp to 1 gallon, 
• 1/4 tsp to 2-5 gallons 
• 1/2 tsp to 5-10 gallons milk.  
• Cultures:
• L. lactis
• L. cremoris
• L. biovar diacetylactis
• Replaces:
  
• Fromage Blanc DS

Mesophillic Aroma type B a/k/a Flora Danica- for soft goat cheeses.  Makes cottage cheese, sour cream, cultured butter, cultured buttermilk, fresh cheeses, Havarti, baby Swiss, Edam, Gouda, creme fraiche 

• Dose:
  
• 1/8 tsp to 1 gallon, 
• 1/4 tsp to 2-5 gallons 
• 1/2 tsp to 5-10 gallons milk.  
• Cultures:
• L. lactis
• L. cremoris
• L. biovar diacetylactis
• L. mesenteroides subsp. cremoris
• Replaces:
  
• Buttermilk DS
• Chevre DS
• Creme Fraiche DS
• Flora Danica DS
• Fresh Starter
• Sour Cream DS

Now every one of these that it replaces that has a DS after it I believe that it has rennet added to the packet.  So obviously you'd follow the recipe for that cheese and add rennet where it calls for it.  If you are using the book Home Cheesemaking and you want to make a cheese that uses a "DS" packet.....you probably should be getting a more advanced cheese making book.  That's where I am.  I've moved out of that book and into a different one to get better recipes that allow me to easily use the bulk starters.  I still use Home Cheesemaking a lot.   Its not going anywhere.  

Posting my salmon patty recipe so I don't forget it

Sad, right.  Anyhow, this is the best salmon patty I've come up with yet. 

2 foilpacks of salmon
1 duck egg (2 chicken eggs- approx)
10 saltines or about 1/2 cup oats
1.5 tsp ranch dressing mix (I use penzey's)
1/4 cup chevre
1/4 cup fresh diced onion  (chives or green onion would probably be better but this is what I had)

mix well, form into patties and into a hot cast iron skillet with a decent layer of lard or oil....brown both sides well :)  Serves 3-6 depending on how hungry the people you are feeding are

Goings on in the fall garden

rainbow chard, planted in July is going strong

Packman broccoli, in flower.  This attracts a lot of bees and other pollinators

My lettuce and spinach patch, now about 30 days or so old and we are picking from it.  Cut and come again style.

My root trio- radish, beet and carrot.  Radishes are about done, beets in about 30 days and carrots for winter.

This radish is starting to bolt.  Its easy to tell from the broken leaves (usually its one big leaf, lobed leaves are for bolting radishes)

same trio bed with radishes removed.  It really loosens the soil nicely for the beets and carrots to grow

from near to far: turnips, rutabaga, kohlrabi and spinach....all 30 days in

hard to see but if you look closely I've got onion seed sprouts started here to overwinter for spring next year.

Spring lettuce gone to seed.  Also attracts pollinators and provides me some seeds.

anyone know what this is?

Broody #2 and her babies

Imagery of today

My boy <3.....even grumpy he's handsome

Whats that saying about a bird in the bush?

4 of the 6 new chicks

my son feeding the goats

the babies from last month

York.....he's such a sterotypical goat

more chicks, pics to come later

I'll try to get some video with all the chicks for you.   We have 8 right now ranging from about 20 days old to 1 day old. They are so cute, just wait and see :)

Last week was a bad week, I hurt my back and so I've been babying it since.  Its still not quite pain free but its improving.  Lots of moaning and groaning about and barely keeping things up around the house.  I did manage to get things caught up yesterday pretty decently and today its pretty much stayed in a good place.  Between yesterday and today I've been pretty productive.  Yesterday I finished the goat yard, just a bit of fenced space right outside their stall for the winter months and today I got the stall cleared out and fresh bedding down. 

I went to my grandparent's house after all was done enough around here and picked pears.  I must have around 1.5 to 2 bushels of unripe bartletts to play with now.  The tree exacted revenge for my stealing its fruit by dropping a large one right onto my forehead from about 20 ft up.  Ouch!  Rang my bell for a second, took a rest and got back to working on it.  My plans this year include pear butter and dried pears, which I do every year and I'm hoping to do some basic canned pears too.  I'm not the biggest fan of pears in their raw form so I probably won't eat any raw.  I am tempted to pick up some additional fruit at the store and make my own fruit cocktail.  That should be fun for my son to try.  I don't think he's ever had it since I won't buy the canned ones at the store.  (I know, I'm a bad mom ....or a good one, depends on your viewpoint)

Also in canning news, I managed to dig up and salvage my sweet potatoes after the voles nearly destroyed my entire harvest.  I pressure canned the rescued bits in quarts and we haven't tried them yet but I'll bet they are tasty.  They sure smelled good cooking.  I also cleared out the frozen fruit from the freezer and made us some jams and jellies.....mulberry jelly (tastes like grape), mixed berry jam, spiced peach blueberry and black raspberry (which came out way too stiff).  The black raspberry is really the only one that didn't turn out but I found out that if I put a big scoop of that very stiff jam in the bottom of my yogurt before I set it to culture overnight then it softens nicely and blends without adding moisture so the yogurt doesn't become a drink like sometimes it can.  I love when mistakes work out. 

Turkey day went well, aside from a few mistakes.  The big tom was too big for everything.  I ended up sitting on him and unfortunately it was like riding a bronco.  I got hit so many times over.  He was huge.  The hens all went much better and the only thing that went badly there was that we used a 5 gallon bucket with hole in the bottom and she broke the bucket and fell.  Both she and the tom were used for ground turkey meat and I parted out her breasts for meals in the future.  The hens weighed about 18lbs average dressed out, the tom we didn't dress out but we parted him out to 16lbs of meat so I'd say he was probably around 25lbs if we'd dressed him out.  I think he might have been as much as 40lbs live.  HUGE!  2 turkey were pieced out.  4 left whole, 1 for each of our families, 1 for a barter (family pictures) and 1 for us later to decide what we are doing with. 

I think that's all I have for now.  I'll try to find my camera tomorrow for some video of those babies!  So cute!!