Does Meso starter affect queso fresco flavor?

[AImhoff]

I'm pretty new to cheese making and started off with basic recipes from Ricki Carroll's "Home Cheese Making".

I add half a packet of meso direct set to a gallon of 90F milk and let it sit. After an hour, the milk tastes the same -- it doesn't seem like the starter changed the milk pH nor flavor. Is that normal?

 

[bernardsmith]

I use home made kefir as the culture in all my cheeses so I cannot speak to using lab cultures but after an hour I do expect to see a drop in pH as the culture grows. I would think that the flavor continues to change as the cheese itself ages... (even fresh cheese). And that suggests that the hour you waited may have been too short (for whatever reason). I believe - no hard evidence - that the culture grows and changes in flavor may be not be perceptible until a threshold is reached at which point the flavor becomes more and more pronounced. Did you finish making that cheese? How did it turn out? Or did you call it a failure and compost the batch?