A busy cheese making weekend, trying to get my fridge full.
Used the Washington Cheese Guild Stilton Approximation recipe, at least tried to. With 1/4 tsp of Flora Danica in 2 gallons of P/H milk and a pint of cream ripened 90 minutes at 86-87 degrees with a morge made from a blue whose bite I like. Renneted with 1/2 tsp of cheesemaking.com calf rennet. 90 minutes later still no flocculation. Added another 1/4 teaspoon of diluted rennet and it finally set up after another 2 hours (I'd given up after half an hour and didn't notice flocculation), but didn't really give a clean break.
Let it heal an hour or so, stirred as gently as possible and the whey was still quite milky. I was ready to give up thinking I'd never get a curd I could mold. After sitting a bit longer (lost track) It looked firm enough to drain, so I did. Let it sit in the covered pot overnight and was greeted with a mass of fairly firm curd and clear whey. Encouraged by this find I milled, salted and molded.
After a few flips it is starting to knit. I may get something useful after all.
I'm still getting used to the liquid rennet again. My first uses were Rikki Carroll recipes, with twice as much starter as most recipes here. It was before I learned about flocculation, but I usually got a clean break in about an hour. Now using the smaller amount of starter I have had floc times over an hour twice. (from one extreme to the other - using those veggie rennet tabs I was getting 5 minute floc) With my Camembert 3, I got flocculation in 5 minutes after adding the second dose of rennet at an hour. I used 1/4 tsp this time, and got a long (over 30 minutes) floc after the second dose.
Could be 6 month old rennet be losing strength? It's been living on my fridge door and I have a son who loves to stare into the fridge waiting for a prepared meal to jump out at him. Next make I will start with 3/4 tsp of rennet, hopefully that will get me reasonable floc time.
Pictures later maybe.