Raw dairy is amazing, and once you start diving into raw dairy products and all things culture, its a fascinating era of discovery.
Learning how to make clabber culture from scratch is not only easy, it also leads to using it to make raw dairy products such as sour cream, and hard cheeses.
As I write these posts about keeping a family milk cow, and learning how to use raw milk and making cheeses, I see a common thread coming through; intimidation.
Clabbered milk was another one of those things that sounded really complicated and hard to get right.
But it’s not! It’s one of the easiest ways make a natural cheese culture.
What Is Clabbered Milk
Clabbered milk is simply raw, unpasteurized dairy, that has been set on a counter in a warm room, and left to thicken naturally.
Milk, with all of it’s amazing abilities, will ferment naturally with no additives.
It’s amazing to me the gifts God has created for us.
Clabbered milk is a fermented dairy product, and contains beneficial properties.
What really drew me to clabber was it’s ability to be both a thermophilic culture as well as a mesophilic culture.
It works in both ways, depending on the temperature of the cheese making process.
After learning about the variety of different uses for clabber culture, I started experimenting with it, and have been blown away with my success so far.
I personally believe using a properly cared for clabber culture gives you more control over your end product.
Plus, the bacteria in the culture will be personal to your location and environment.
There might still be times you want a freeze dried culture, for certain cheeses, but clabber culture works very well for a variety of cheeses such as Asiago and Gouda.
How to Use Clabbered Milk
Clabbered milk can be eaten as a fermented food. I have not tried it on it’s own yet, and have no desire to.
However, you can use Clabbered Milk (or the whey from it) to make sour cream, Cottage Cheese, and hard cheeses such as Gouda and Asiago.
You can also use clabber to make salad dressings, marinades, and adding to biscuits or muffins.
How To Make Clabbered Milk
Knowing how to culture raw milk opens the door to many natural raw dairy products.
I made my first clabber culture unintentionally. When we first started milking our cow, I was overwhelmed by the amount of milk we got.
At a certain point, I decided I would feed several gallons to our chickens to empty some jars, and I also knew it was good for them.
I left 2 gallons of milk on the counter in my warm kitchen to ferment. It took about 2 days for it to thicken naturally.
As it turned out, I also decided to make some cottage cheese.
Instead of using sour cream from the store to inoculate my milk, I scooped off 1/2 cup of heavy raw clabbered cream from the top of my clabbered milk jars.
The cottage cheese was such a success, with a wonderful taste I knew I needed to dive into this some more.
To make clabber culture, I set aside 2 cups of fresh raw milk in a glass quart jar.
I added in a teaspoon of clabber culture, and covered with a thin layer of plastic. Within 24 hours it was smooth, thick and jelly.
A beautiful clabber culture was born.
Your first jar of clabber might take longer to culture.
It depends on how fresh your milk is, as well as how warm your home is.
It can easily take from 2-5 days for it to really thicken. After that, as you continue feeding and fermenting, it should thicken faster.
Now you don’t want to use a new culture immediately to make cheeses.
Keeping a clabber culture is a bit like keeping a sourdough starter.
You need to feed it several times before using for cheeses. I didn’t follow this rule with my first batch, but I’ve since learn it’s best to feed it several times.
Once you have your starter culture, for at least 5-8 days, pour 2 cups of fresh raw milk into a clean quart jar each day.
Add a teaspoon of the previous thickened clabbered milk into the clean jar, and wait 24 hours. At first the smell of clabbered milk will be strongly cheesy.
You don’t want to use that for cheese. Keep making fresh clabber with a previous culture mixed in.
Once you’ve come to a good product, you can store it in the fridge for up to a week.
At that point you only need to refresh your batch once a week, let it thicken on the counter, and refrigerate it again.
Simple and simple.
Learning how to make clabber culture from scratch is a natural process in cheese making and all things raw dairy. It’s easy to make as well as easy to keep.
You do need raw milk, though, so find a clean and reliable source.
