Emmentaler lets try this again

[Alpkäserei]

distilled or spring water would be recommended. The chemicals in city water can be harmful to bacteria (since that's their whole point anyway). I'm fortunate enough to not have to live in a city, and we have good well water. So I use our hard water for all cheesemaking applications.

I often make my brines fully saturated, but this is also for a big cheese.

[H-K-J]

Here are a few more pictures
I hit all my target temps and drained the whey as fast as I could, then got it in warm whey and in the press.
I knew it was going to be fine right after I took it out of the draining cloth after spinning the cloth tight to get more whey out of the cheese
the curd was already beggin to get in the mold.
It was a little hard to get out of the mold after the overnight press, the knit, I think, could not have gotten much better.
I couldn't find a skimmer like yours Boofer so sort of did what Alpkäserei suggested, improvised with a tea saucer (just one) could not get any pictures of this process as both hand's were busy, it worked just fine, Thank you Alpkäserei
It is now in the brine, if memory serves, I have read to brine for 4 to 6 hours a pound of cheese,flipping half way through, the cheese weighs 4# 91/8 oz.
This is twice the weight of my first attempt , anyway so figure 41/2# would be an 18 hour brine at 4 hours per pound
I am thinking maybe 9 or 10 hours, suggestions anyone?

distilled or spring water would be recommended. The chemicals in city water can be harmful to bacteria (since that's their whole point anyway). I'm fortunate enough to not have to live in a city, and we have good well water. So I use our hard water for all cheesemaking applications.

I often make my brines fully saturated, but this is also for a big cheese.

I just saw this post
I made a fully saturated brine that is why I am thinking a shorter brine period?

Thanks everyone for all of this great information, this has went so much better than last time

[JeffHamm]

Fantastic looking wheel!  A cheese to you.  Looking forward to seeing how this turns out.

- Jeff

[Alpkäserei]

It's hard to give a rule for brining times like x hours per pound. This is because every tradition has different notions of how salty the cheese should be.

If I remember right, I think the big wheels of emmentaler are brined for 2 days, but I might be wrong. They also say 22 kg salz for 100 liter water. The rule for Alpkäse is 20 to 24 hours, but the mountain cheeses are brined less than the valley cheeses. They say this is because you have to carry everything up the mountain, so you spare as much extra weight as you can. SO you salt the cheeses less so you won't be carrying as much salt up with you.

Obviously at 30+ pounds, we aren't brining 4 hours per pound of cheese 
If we did that, we'd have to brine for 5 days. This leads me to believe that this rule is for more along the lines of Parmesan than Swiss cheeses.

I would imagine that 8 to 10 hours would be good.

Nice looking cheese, it is good to see that things worked out well. How will you be treating this cheese after brining? The makers in the Emmental smear them with salt and b. linens several times per week.

Now when it comes to aging procedure to get the eyes, I'm afraid I can't be much help. We go to great lengths to avoid eyes in our cheeses, so I only know how not to get them...

[H-K-J]

Alpkäserei
A quote from you on another thread

The wash I learned was simple. A little water, a little salt, and a little white wine (no b. linen cultures or anything like that). This makes a nice golden brown rind which really has a pleasant, simple flavor. The wine also does a quick job of making the surface uninviting to any molds. I found that even in my blue mold infested cellar in damp humid Indiana, this wash keeps my cheeses spotless.

this is what I wold like to try, do you have a basic recipe for a wine wash?
I do need to start thinking about salting or washing this one. 

[Alpkäserei]

Ya, basic recipe is:

Some water,
some salt,
some wine.

No seriously, that's my recipe.

But maybe that's not so helpful 

If you would use a quart of water, maybe you could add a cup of good wine and 2 T salt or so. Mix it well, keep it covered, and just use this same wash the whole time. It will get some slime in it from the cheese and maybe even a little mold will grow on the slime but that's fine. If you keep it in the refrigerator, it will be fine. I just keep mine on the shelf in the cellar near the cheeses. You don't need a whole lot of salt, but you also aren't going to put too much salt. A lot of people just rub with dry salt.

The proportions of a washing brine don't seem to really make much difference. It's the soaking brine that really determines the salinity of the inside of the cheese.

I did check out some information I got from a cheesemaker one time when I was in the Emmental, they would indicate that as soon as the rind is developed and dry you move the cheese to a warm place. But when forming the rind, it needs to be in a cool damp place. The PS needs good warmth to grow.

They also say that the cheese in the warm room will sweat out fat that needs to be regularly wiped off. 

[H-K-J]

Thank you for the recipe, I will make that up tonight.
I will be taking the cheese out after an 11 hour brine then pat it down with paper towels.
put it in an ageing container for the night at around 50 to 55 deg. for the night. in the morning I will start the wash, daily?

Fantastic looking wheel!  A cheese to you.  Looking forward to seeing how this turns out.
- Jeff

thank's for the cheese Jeff encouragement is all way's nice to have.
Can't wait for next week, to bring it out and see if it will start the swelling process

H-K-J

[H-K-J]

Nothing disastrous happened overnight the rind is nice and solid and dry, RH is 91% and temp is 51°f
Now I just have to keep it this way.

[bbracken677]

Am keeping an eye on this make...I may try one myself in December so it will be ready the following Christmas. Great looking cheese so far. I think before I try my hand at it tho I need to improve my rind smoothing skills since that is still one area I am struggling with.

[Alpkäserei]

I would say wash daily for a while.

producers can get by washing their cheeses 3 times a week or so, but also remember they have climate controlled rooms, and wear lab suits to keep things out.

We don't have that luxury, so we wash daily.

If you have 100 kilo wheels, and maybe a few hundred of those, it makes sense to not want to wash them all every day 

[H-K-J]

Yep I plan on washing tonight for the first time
I will do that after I air my Stilton and wipe thing's down

[Boofer]

I couldn't find a skimmer like yours Boofer

Here are some ideas:

• TheCheeseMaker
• Glengarry Cheesemaking
• The New England Cheesemaking Supply Company
• Leeners

-Boofer-

[H-K-J]

Thanks Boofer,
I did  check out the cheese maker, my problem was gettin it the day before my make, that wasn't going to happen unless I could fin one in town
When you live in poedunk Idaho and the pony express is the mail system (not that bad, just seems to be) I just decided to improvise and geterdone
I do plan on ordering one the next time I order some supply's.

Adding some cheese porn uh, pics, the cheese lost a couple of oz' after the brine yet it still weighs twice as much as my last one
the last pics are after the first wash I will do this every day, besides I like pickin it up and smelling it and talkin to it and OK! gettin a little excessive here
 at least the little nubbins are smoothing out, it is lookin so nice

[Alpkäserei]

The rind looks very well formed, and it took the brining very well. This means that a mature rind is not far off, and if it doesn't get attacked by molds it does not need as intense of washing.

What tool do you use for washing?  A soft, natural brush is ideal. A rag tends to wipe off too much of the smear that will form, and can make a streaky, bumpy rind.

[H-K-J]

I am using a very soft natural bristle, it did a nice job (I thought) the rind does  seem to be coming along nicely