Sour Cream Experimentation

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Sour Cream Experimentation

Postby LuciaLoosha on Mon Sep 23, 2013 7:29 pm

Here is my documentation of some of my experiments into making sour cream. My original mission was to find a method that would allow me to make sour cream similar to standard grocery store sour cream without having a consistently buy a starter. I wanted to be able to use store bought non-raw cream, as this is what is readily available in my area.

Almost all recipes online called for using buttermilk to start the sour cream. While buttermilk is cheap, it would still be a pain to constantly have to buy buttermilk, especially when the whole point was to not have to buy processed milk products.

First, I tried making sour cream in the same way that I make my (non-mesophilic) yogurt, as then I could just use yogurt, which I always have on hand, and not have to buy buttermilk. However, the product wasn’t what I was looking for. While it was delicious, it was different from standard sour cream. It was better after sitting in the fridge for a few days. At the end of the day it was extremely rich yogurt, rather than sour cream.

Next I tried the buttermilk method. It worked beautifully. I resigned myself to buying buttermilk. Then looking at more videos, noticed that in a significant amount of the videos people were using “homemade buttermilk” (vinegar and milk) which has no culture, and it was working just fine. This lead me to the theory (later disproven) that it was simply the act of sitting out, not the culture in the buttermilk, that was thickening and souring the cream.

So I set up an experiment where I would side by side watch cream started with buttermilk, plain cream, and (on a whim) cream started with my last batch of sour cream.

The short story is: the old sour cream and buttermilk started batches came out almost exactly the same. The old sour cream thickened much faster, but possibly just because I may have added a little more starter to that batch.

The no starter cream didn’t do much at first. After 24 hours it still tasted and looked like cream, except that it had a thickened cap on top. I decided to leave it out for another 24 hours. After around 30 hours it had suddenly thickened, but didn’t yet taste sour. After 48 hours it was very thick, but slightly grainy. It was sour, but unpleasantly so. It tasted mildly "bad" rather than "sour." I would be interested to know if putting it in the fridge earlier would allow you to catch it right as it was barely sour. Until someone looks into this, I wouldn’t recommend this.

So I think I will be sticking to the old sour cream method of starting new cream with some from a last batch (so it is basically like mesophilic yogurt). I’ll report back later and let you know if the old sour cream method ever “wears out” like some yogurt cultures can.

Questions moving forward:
-Could you start sour cream with store bought sour cream?
-If I restart sour cream with old sour cream every time will it eventually stop working, or come out differently? I have heard of people’s yogurt cultures slowly getting old and changing or not working at all. Perhaps this will happen hear as well?
-Would adjusting time (or temperature) yield a better result with the no starter method?

I would love to hear other people's experiments or experiences.
LuciaLoosha
 
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