could use a hand with my raw milk / sour cream...

[bornthrifty]

hi there,

we have been enjoying fresh milk for some time now,

and now that we have had some time, we are trying out some recipies from that

I have made buttermilk from the milk and am very happy with it

but now I have tried to make sour cream
two ways

the first time I let it sour covered on the counter for 24 hours, and it was runny and smelled of old gym socks,

the second time I took a pint of cream and added some buttermilk to it (following some recipie) and left it out like it said, again covered,
and it to was runny looking after 24 hours, however I put it in the fridge, and it thickened up nicely, it smelled better than the first batch, but now I tasted it, and it is rather tangy, like my overly tangy yogurt

did I do something wrong?

or should it be this tangy, (pucker up tangy, old cheese tangy,) not the flavor I was looking for to say the least...

boy do I feel dumb asking about how to properly sour cream...I am sure my grandmother is rolling in her grave...

 

[freemotion]

I've never made sour cream, since I am working with goat's milk. But I've made lots of yogurt, kefir, and various cheeses, and I've found that it is always an adventure!

The commercial operations test each batch of milk for pH and such and add things to adjust it so every batch of product comes out the same. We can't do that at home....well, we could, but I don't want the bother and the expense!

I've found that several things impact my cultured milk products: the temp of my kitchen, the cleanliness of my milk/containers/untensils (I think they are all cleaned in the same way...but then when one quart of yogurt in a batch of nine quarts comes out funky, I assume that the jar was not as clean as I thought it was), where the animal is in her lactation, what she is eating, the cultures I am using, etc.

Too sour usually means you need to use less time at room temperature. Or start at a slightly cooler temp. It's worth a try!

 

[bornthrifty]

thank you for your help on both posts...

my retired farmer neighbor says in the old days "you just left it out on the counter to sour, for a day or two"
so that was my inspiration to "try" to sour it,

that was probably the problem, that I left it out to long,