Can I safely use sour milk?

Controversy. Growing up in the South I was always around older women who cooked and baked phenomenally well.

One was an older cousin & Philly transplant. Whenever we would drive in to town for a visit she would pull out cartons of soured milk to make the best waffles, sweet cakes. & johnnycakes I've ever had. I'm positive the milk was just regular grocery store pasteurized milk.

Can I replicate this in my home kitchen? If so, how long can I keep soured milk?

Thanks for your comments & thoughts in advance,

It depends on what you mean: a lot of southern recipes mention using "soured milk," meaning acidified milk - or milk to which, typically, lemon juice has been added. I think this is a nod to northern cooks who don't keep buttermilk in their pantries, and offers the necessary acid to act as a leavener in baked goods (truthfully, I don't usually keep buttermilk, but I've found a better substitute is to thoroughly blend a ratio of 1/2 milk, 1/2 plain yogurt)

However, making cultured buttermilk is very similar to making yogurt. There's a page here that describes the process (I love this site, am planning to work on cheesemaking sometime in the not distant future.) One issue with milk and bacterial cultures is that you need to be sure that the "good" bacteria outnumber the "bad" pathogenic bacteria, as you can wind up with milk that isn't safe to drink if the ratio goes the other way.

Hi,

Soured milk in baked goods is an acceptable reuse, though usually using baking soda and not baking powder. Soured milk gently heated, then drained is a method to make farmer's cheese.

What is not a good idea is to drink soured milk. My Dad has done it for years, which I kept telling him was pretty risky. Recently he finally did run into trouble and has sworn off drinking sour milk.

I have heard of people who think buttermilk isn't as sour as it should be. They let it mature in the refrigerator for weeks until it is "just right."

Everything your relative made with sour milk can be made with buttermilk.

So what is the controversy?

I have been known to keep buttermilk around for weeks if I don't use it up right away. I prefer the older buttermilk for baking as it gets noticeably thicker as it ages. My ancient copy of Joy of Cooking seems to presume cooks kept sour milk around as many recipes offer advice on souring milk if you don't have any handy. Sour I don't worry about, but fuzzy....that's a different story. I pitch anything growing mold.

Cathy2 wrote:
So what is the controversy?

1st & off topic. It was great meeting you yesterday. I really appreciate all of your true showings of love on this Board & at that Picnic & it's "coming soon" threads.

The controversy is the notion of using, by American standards, milk past it's sell by date.

I don't use it raw, only cooked.

Will move happily along with the baking now.

I bought some lactobacillis (to make mozzarella) from an Italian deli in Montréal. Just for an experiment, I seeded into some fresh milk, and let it age and age. It got sourer and sourer, until after a week or so it was astoundingly sour, and bitter, too. I suspect it was unsafe to drink, not because of bad bugs (I'm sure there was nothing in there but lactobacillis), but because the pH was dangerously low! So, even if your souring of milk were bug-safe, there's too much of a good thing possible.

Geo

If your only talking about using milk after its sell by date, then if there is no off odor or curds the milk is not sour. Sell by date is just that you can't sell it after that date it is not a used by date. I do use soured milk milk soured with vinegar or lemon juice when I don't have buttermilk available for baking.
Paulette

The controversy is the notion of using, by American standards, milk past it's sell by date.

Nope. Current pasteurization techniques preclude the old-time souring process; the mild simply spoils, developing a foul taste making it unfit for *any*use. Stick to buttermilk. It's a silly thing to risk making people sick over!

I use sour milk all the time in baking. Many of my grandmothers recipes called for sour milk, as cooks were thrifty and needed to use up anything they had on hand. In baking, any bacteria is killed during that process so it is safe. I would not drink soured milk or use it in recipes other than baked goods.

In baking, any bacteria is killed during that process so it is safe.

That's a pretty risky point of view to take. Food poisoning is nothing to screw around with, particularly the toxins produced by anaerobic bacteria. That stuff can easily be fatal.