Mesophilic Culture
Cheese cultures inoculate your milk with friendly bacteria. This is what gives cheese its taste, and it helps the milk coagulate or turn into curds. Mesophilic culture is for cheeses cooked at intermediate temperatures. I use the mesophilic culture more than any other type.
1. Start with 2 cups of FRESH store bought cultured buttermilk (it will say cultured on the carton).
2. Let the buttermilk reach room temperature or about 70 degrees F.
3. Allow it to ripen for 6-8 hours at room temperature.
Hint: If you take it out of the refrigerator after supper, put it in a container with a lid, then leave it out over night, it will be ready to work with by the next morning. The buttermilk will now be thicker and more sour than what you started out with. It should have the consistency of fresh yogurt. If it doesn't, let it sit for a few more hours.
4. Shake or stir the culture well. Pour this culture into a clean ice cube tray, full sized. Put it in your freezer. Once it is solidly frozen, separate and remove cubes from tray and place in a zip-lock freezer bag or a container with a lid.
5. Each cube is about 1 ounce of mesophilic starter for future recipe purposes. Label the container so you don't get it mixed up with other cultures. Add thawed cubes to your recipes as required (thawing takes about 30 seconds in the microwave). Cubes will keep for at least a month and probably as much as three months or more in the freezer, depending on how well you have them sealed.
To make starter the next time, add one thawed cube to 2 cups of fresh milk, mix thoroughly with a wire whisk. Allow to stand at room temperature for 16-24 hours or until the consistency of fresh yogurt and freeze as above.