I tried making sour cream again twice last week. Both times, it failed. I wasn't sure the first time if I'd messed up the measurements and that was the problem, since I had just guessed at the amounts from memory. So the second time, I did it by the book...and it still failed. So I had to wonder if it was the milk I was using. The last few times I've gone to the store, they were out of the local milk so I bought a different brand. I checked the milk we were using and it said "pasteurized" but not "ultra-pasteurized", so it should have been fine. Still, it wasn't working. So when I went shopping over the weekend I bought the last half-gallon of local milk from the store and tried sour cream for the third time. This time, it set beautifully.
Lesson learned. From now on, I will not be making home dairy products except with the local milk. And now we can finally make the moose stroganoff I've been pushing off for over a week since we didn't have any sour cream and I'm now refusing to buy something I can make so easily. :) Yum!
hey there, Calamity from Apron Stringz. milk doesn't make sour cream, cream makes sour cream. were you using buttermilk to set it or a purchased culture? milk set with buttermilk is just more buttermilk (very good for cooking!), and even ultra pasteurized works for that. but it doesn't get thick like sour cream.
ReplyDeletea little buttermilk added to full on heavy cream makes sour cream though. or, i think it's technically "creme freiche" but, same difference ;) but either that or the milk to buttermilk need to set at a pretty warm temperature. the books say "room temperature" but i can tell you, i had trouble when we lived in alaska. our house was usually upper 60s. there is a big difference, bacterial-growth-wise between 68 and 75. very big. below 68, some of the "room temperature" stuff just doesn't seem to work.
hope that was helpful and not annoying ;)
Actually, that was super helpful! Thanks!
Delete