I wanted to get one last cheese into the cave network before the end of the year. I had previously made a
Horseradish Cheddar but still wanted to make a cheese with garlic. I've tasted some garlic Gouda recently and it was very nice.
Yesterday, following Pav's Gouda missive, I made my garlic cheese. There were a few hiccups along the way but overall I think it went well.
You may notice a distinct color enhancement to this particular cheese. Do not attempt to adjust the lighting in your room or your computer display. If I had occasion to travel with this cheese, it could serve extra duty as a traffic caution signal.
You see, I had been using this one small bottle of annatto but it ran out during this make so I opened my backup bottle. With the previous bottle I had to use quite a bit to achieve any color at all. This bottle brought a whole new meaning to annatto coloring.
Clearly, I could have used less coloring.
I had contemplated using the fresh, crushed garlic in the jar in this cheese, but that would have meant neutralizing the citric acid with which the garlic was preserved. In the end, choosing the dry, granulated garlic was the better decision. Towards the end of the make, my ExStik decided to quit working. When the cheese was pressing I had no idea what the pH was. Normally I try to press to a certain pH target (5.3-5.4) and then put the cheese into the brine. I winged it and pressed for 5 hours and then decided to brine. I didn't want to over-acidify in the press. Pressing overnight or without monitoring pH seems like throwing your chances of success to the wind.
Initial pH: 6.63
Rennet pH: 6.54
Cutting pH: 6.35
Moulding pH: NA meter died
Brining pH: NA meter died
3 gallons of Twin Brook Creamery whole creamline milk
1/8 tsp MM100
1/8 tsp Aroma B
1/16 tsp Holdbac
1/32 tsp PLA
1 tsp CACL2
1 tsp annatto
1/32 tsp dry calf rennet
I used a 3.5 floc factor. Flocculation took 25 minutes. With the creamline winter milk I could have used a little more.
I pressed initially using the 11 pounds of the lever & piston, flipped/redressed after 15 minutes, and repressed the same, under warm whey.
I then pressed using around 2.7 psi under whey. I flipped/redressed and repressed without the whey in the pot to keep the curds warm.
Finally, I flipped/redressed and pressed with around 5 psi in the pot. After four hours, I flipped and removed the plastic cloth, pressing again in the pot with around 5 psi.
When I took the PLA out of the freezer and took the portion I needed for the make, I also took some to make a brine wash for this cheese. I then vacuum-sealed all the cultures and returned them to the freezer.
The cheese was in the whey-brine for 11 hours. I had intended for 9 hours but the alarm failed so I got up at 2AM instead of midnight. Some of the cheeses have been a little shy of salt so maybe this is a good thing.
Edited to include a copy of Pav's Gouda treatise since his website was taken down.-Boofer-