My first year of making cheeses was completely dominated by using buttermilk as the starter.  I would buy a quart of buttermilk and add a quarter cup of the stuff to the milk prior to letting the milk set for the period of time recommended in Rikki’s book.  As I have stated previously my cheeses, with some exceptions, tasted very similar and were dry and crumbly.

This morning I visited Cheesemaking.org and was reading that a person should allow the buttermilk to ripen at room temp for 7 to 8 hours prior to adding to the milk to allow the bacteria in the buttermilk to awaken and do their job properly.

What are your thoughts on this?

thanks

kim

Get the starter mix and do your own
I love buttermilk but the cost are such that might as well buy a gallon and add culture and let it sit till the next day and drink it down LOL.
Thats why I made Kieffer, had a craving for it and I had some culture packets (5 years old and still works great).
I used 1gall 2% then added cup 18% to bring it up, works better with more fat. By the way, calcium req fat to be absorbed into the body.

I too used buttermilk at first.  I was not overly satisfied with the results, so I switched to commercial starter culture.  I’m now using a couple or three different types - thanks to Dave’s suggestion of using MM100 culture in Gouda.  There’s obviously a lot to learn in the culture area; but isn’t that what we’re here for???