Cooking For Engineers

[dianamoon]

I can't think where else to put this question - if I should be putting it somewhere else, tell me.

I've had good success making home made yoghurt, but I've had a weird experience making home made buttermilk, which is supposedly easier.

All you have to do to make homemade cultured buttermilk is add a 1/4 cup of commercial cultured buttermilk to a quart of milk, mix it up, and let it sit somewhere for 24 hours.

I've done this twice and the weirdest thing happens. It does become buttermilk. It thickens and the taste is good. But - and here is the weird part - the consistency is gummy, viscous and stringy. Almost ropey in fact. This is not a nice thing, and the mouth feel is kind of gross. The taste is good but the ropey, slimey mouth feel is yuck.

Does anybody have any idea what is going on?