Culturing wild diary lactic bacteria in pasteurized milk

[Laurent_E]

Hello,

I know that diary products are fermented thanks to a strain of lactic acid bacteria that is different than the one we find in legume / veggies ferments.

I've read Rachel's post on culturing milk with sauerkraut brine which seems to give it a bitter taste and would thus prefer using an appropriate culture.
https://www.wildfermentationforum.com/v ... f=3&t=4442

So my question is, is it possible to cultivate these same strains using pasteurized milk ? In other words, is this same strain also present in the air ? Are alternative strains present in the air ? Or will I have to use non-pasteurized milk ?

Thank you in advance,
Have a nice day.

[Christopher Weeks]

I think the best course of action is to use raw milk. But if you don't have access, or it's cost-prohibitive (I'm told it's $20/gal in California), you can maintain and use heritage yogurt cultures. As I understand it, commercial yogurt has 3-6 bacterial strains and over time, saving some to culture the next batch, tends to attenuate as strains die off. But very rich more-"wild" cultures with several dozen strains, tend to continue and perpetuate better. So, if you can acquire a sample, you can keep it going. But I think building one from air and soil is probably a lot of work and likely to produce a lot of failed batches. (Caveat: I'm no dairy expert.)

[Laurent_E]

I think the best course of action is to use raw milk. But if you don't have access, or it's cost-prohibitive (I'm told it's $20/gal in California), you can maintain and use heritage yogurt cultures. As I understand it, commercial yogurt has 3-6 bacterial strains and over time, saving some to culture the next batch, tends to attenuate as strains die off. But very rich more-"wild" cultures with several dozen strains, tend to continue and perpetuate better. So, if you can acquire a sample, you can keep it going. But I think building one from air and soil is probably a lot of work and likely to produce a lot of failed batches. (Caveat: I'm no dairy expert.)

20 dollars a gallon is pure theft indeed. You can get a raw gallon for 5-7 dollars in france and if you buy 10 hectoliters on a farm it'll cost you about 364 euros (1.3 euros a gallon = 1.4 dollars).

Finally I've got myself a thermometer and yogurt ferments to make some yogurt at first. The ferments are said to contain two strains (streptococus thermophilus and lactobacillus bulgaricus, which are the basic ones found in diary ferments).

I think I'm going to culture these in order to later make cheese, it would be a plus if wild bacteria and yeasts colonized it.