My Bleeding Yogurt

[liuzhou]

I"ve been making yogurt for a long time - about a litre every week.

Tonight, I went to serve some and found that it was bleeding. It has this bright red something running through it. It has been in contact with nothing red that I know of.

Any ideas?

I ate some of this batch a few days ago. Will I die?!

[boudin noir]

Probably mold.

[Panaderia Canadiense]

Definitely mould - pink is the first mould colour to appear in yogurt as it goes off....

[liuzhou]

I wonder how it got there. I scrupulously sterilise everything when I make yogurt. I've been making it for 30 years and this has never happened before.

Oh, well. A new batch tomorrow, then.

Thanks for the answers.

Edited October 5, 2013 by liuzhou (log)

[Panaderia Canadiense]

Airborne, most likely.

[liuzhou]

Airborne into a sealed container in a fridge?

[Panaderia Canadiense]

You'd be surprised. I've had batches that I'd swear were 100% sterile and kept away from contamination that pinked out on me after 48 hours - the spores must have gotten into the culture between the scalding pot and the fermenting pot.

[andiesenji]

I had a problem with a similar organism a few years ago - not only yogurt but also my cottage cheese, cream cheese, sour cream.

A friend who is a lab tech took some culture samples and the source was three of my rubber or silicone spatulas which had been through the dishwasher but apparently the spores were imbedded in the material itself.

I switch to using only stainless steel - utensils and have never had the problem since then.

I threw away the "contaminated" spatulas. I also threw out all the spatulas with wooden handles as they all cultured with organisms that were not necessarily pathogens, but better to be safe than sorry. The ones with bamboo handles were entirely free of any organisms.

Any plastic material, even the hard plastics, after a few uses can develop microscopic "pores" in which these spores can hide and infect anything that is put in the container.

About the only way to get rid of them safely is to steam them for at least 15 minutes. The chemical disinfectants can be effective but also difficult to remove and bleach just doesn't do an adequate job.

Edited October 5, 2013 by andiesenji (log)

[liuzhou]

Interesting. Thanks