Author Topic: Cheese Making Beginner Questions  (Read 1267 times)

Najmie

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Cheese Making Beginner Questions
« on: August 15, 2012, 05:38:03 AM »
Hi everyone!

I'm very new around here. My name's Najmie, from Malaysia. In my country, variety of cheeses are not very readily available everywhere. Most supermarkets only sell American cheese and probably cheddar. Very few stores have more than that.

So I decided to make my own!

But I have some curious questions before I start anything.

1. If I add additional cream to a hard cheese recipe, will the cheese still be hard at the end? Or if I remove cream (use skimmed milk 0.5% fat) to make a soft cheese, will it still be soft? What changes can I expect on the end product?

2. Will the milk curdle if I add the rennet before ripening the milk (i.e. no starter culture)?

3. Is there any difference if I add the starter culture to the curd, instead of to the milk?

4. What will happen if I decided not to ripen the milk at all? I just add the rennet to the milk, wait for it to curdle, then press the curd, drain off the whey, then let it age.

Ok for now, these questions only. But I'm sure I have much more to ask once I start!

Thank you!

Offline NimbinValley

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Re: Cheese Making Beginner Questions
« Reply #1 on: August 15, 2012, 07:39:30 AM »
Hi Najmie.  Welcome to the group.  I'm from your part of  the world so I thought I'd be the first to throw in some ideas...
1. If I add additional cream to a hard cheese recipe, will the cheese still be hard at the end? Or if I remove cream (use skimmed milk 0.5% fat) to make a soft cheese, will it still be soft? What changes can I expect on the end product?
Adding cream tends to make the cheese softer, such as havarti and removing cream makes them harder such as parmesan.  The making process also has a big impact on the final cheese hardness and keeping qualities though.
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2. Will the milk curdle if I add the rennet before ripening the milk (i.e. no starter culture)?
I'm not quite sure what you mean here but... adding rennet before adding culture (ripening??) will result in you making a 'raw' milk cheese since the only flora in the milk will be the ones that were there naturally.  If you are using pre-pasteurised milk this will not be the case since most of the existing microflora will have been killed.  In direct answer to your question - yes.
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3. Is there any difference if I add the starter culture to the curd, instead of to the milk?
It will be almost impossible to get the starter culture to grow through the curd if applied after coagulation.  I may be corrected but I don't know of any cheese where the starter culture is added after coagulation.  I have heard of people adding blue mould to the curds instead of the milk though.
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4. What will happen if I decided not to ripen the milk at all? I just add the rennet to the milk, wait for it to curdle, then press the curd, drain off the whey, then let it age.
Basically what I have explained in question 2.  If the milk is raw - the results could be great!  If the milk is pasteurised the results could be boring or terrible...
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Ok for now, these questions only. But I'm sure I have much more to ask once I start!

Thank you!

Have fun.

NVD.

Najmie

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Re: Cheese Making Beginner Questions
« Reply #2 on: August 15, 2012, 09:09:01 AM »
Ok thank you very much!

I hope I will kickstart my cheesemaking life in about a month. If I do so, I'll post some pics here!