Ask Allie!

Ask Allie is our advice column, where you can ask all your food-related questions to get digestible answers! No question is off limits!

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Hi! I have a lovely Langfil and a Halsofil sitting happily on my stove. I pull from either of them daily for breakfast (being super careful to ensure no contamination happens) and I feed them again with Fairlife whole milk. When I feed them I use the recommended process on this website for making regular batches of yogurt. Both have acquired an almost effervescent quality in the last day or two, which I've not experienced with my mesophilic yogurts before. It's not entirely unpleasant, but a little off-putting. I don't expect fizziness when I'm eating yogurt. Any idea what this means and what I should do? Thank you!

— Bethany

I would cut down the fermenting time. Also, stove may not be the ideal place, if you’re cooking or baking with the oven or other burners. If fermenting for a shorter time doesn’t work, try using a breathable lid (but separate your cultures by 3-6’ if so).

Some time ago I bought your sour cream. Is it possible to know the name of the cultures in the sour cream? Also, I am looking for a sour cream from Romania or from Eastern Europe. It has a different taste compared to the regular sour cream from yours. Would you have any intention to add to your product such sour cream?

— Tiago

We don’t lab test our cultures, so the only way for you to be sure is to send a sample to a lab for testing. Yes, we do have plans to add smetana (Russian sour cream) to our roster of cultures, but give us a bit on that.

2 of my 4 cultures got moldy on top. I activated them and then the next time they were left out for 24 hours. And they are moldy. Are they ruined?

— Donna

After a bit of back and forth getting information, we determined that the process used was:

I activated it once and it was fine. One the fifth day I did the second activation and I left it on counter to activate for 24 hours. Put it in fridge and left it seven days and went to activate the third time and it was moldy. I know 5 days is better than 7. And I did have them right next to each other. Just wondering if those 2 things were the problem? I don't want to ruin the rest of my cultures.

Note: lately there has been an issue with people not doing their first 3 batches back-to-back or very close to it, and it’s been damaging and sometimes killing people’s cultures. Please do the first three like we ask you to in the activation instructions and FAQ.

Ah, I see. You neglected your cultures to a degree of weakness that allowed them to mold instead of being able to wait for you to be ready to reculture on your own time. Yes, throw those away because they are definitely ruined. Your first three activation batches should be done back to back so the culture can recover from its jetlag and strengthen up to its full strength. After that, it’s fine to let it go up to 7 days in the fridge before you either freeze it or reculture. But they do have to be fully activated, not partially, in accordance with our activation instructions in order to be okay for a week in the fridge. With your other two, activate them according to our instructions on the website, and after the third batch, save 2 backups in the freezer. I like breast milk bags for this, but you can use any freezer-safe container or bag. Once that’s done, you can start waiting up to 7 days between batches. Make sure those initial activation batches are small, not to exceed 1 cup of milk. I personally favor half cup batches.