Author Topic: Grainy soft cheese  (Read 2548 times)

dkskinn

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Grainy soft cheese
« on: April 22, 2013, 11:04:53 PM »
Ok, here's the story.

I am a total noob so don't be too harsh. But I tried to make a hard cheese last night, the recipe called for 1 gallon of milk, i used 2% from the store, warmed it up to 70F, and added the 3 Tbs of buttermilk it called for to get things started. it said to leave it at room temp "over night" no specific time... So when i got to it in the morning I essentially had a gallon of thick buttermilk.>:( 
I have heard that once it has clabbered you'll never get a clean break, but what the heck I'm a noob, so I tried any way.:P  I warmed it to 86F and added the rennet and waited...........
nothing after an hour, waited another hour and figured, "yup, they must be right... no clean break after it thickens."

So i came across another recipe for Buttermilk cheese in the book "Cheesemaking made easy" I figured "I essentially have a gallon of buttermilk, lets not make it a total loss" It says to heat the buttermilk to 160F, stirring now and then. The curds will separate from the whey. "which it never really did till it cooled, it looked like fluffy clouds" Then pour curds into cheesecloth and hang to drain.

now all of this to say, now i got Fairly decent tasting, but dry and grainy soft cheese...

1. Is there a way to get rid off the graininess?

2. What did I do wrong?

Please help this noooooob!

dkskinn.

bbracken677

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Re: Grainy soft cheese
« Reply #1 on: April 22, 2013, 11:53:25 PM »
I wish I could answer this...but have never tried this type of cheese.   

I did get grainy cream cheese early on (one of the first cheeses I made) but I never really knew what caused it for sure.

dkskinn

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Re: Grainy soft cheese
« Reply #2 on: April 23, 2013, 12:01:25 AM »
Eh, looks like today was a complete loss. I made bread too, really yummy whole wheat buttermilk honey bread. Cant get it out of the pan with out destroying it... The cooking Gods were not with me today...  >:(

MrsKK

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Re: Grainy soft cheese
« Reply #3 on: April 23, 2013, 07:06:12 PM »
The graininess is probably from the added rennet.  If you want to try buttermilk cheese again, do it without the rennet and I'd bet it will turn out nicely.

Don't let it discourage you - it's not a failure, just not the results you were hoping for...

linuxboy

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Re: Grainy soft cheese
« Reply #4 on: April 23, 2013, 07:08:49 PM »
You made a tvorog variant. Generally, in tvorog, overacidification and overheating cause graininess.

quidnunc

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Re: Grainy soft cheese
« Reply #5 on: April 30, 2013, 04:45:36 PM »
Hi
I have only made two attempts at making a soft cheese (or any cheese for that matter) and this sounds very much like what I ended up with on my second attempt; the first was lovely and creamy but the second was just as you described--dry and crumbly and, like you I don't know why.  I use a digital thermometer so I don't think it was a temperature problem (except it took an inordinate amount of time for the temperature to fall to the 68 F specified, so perhaps this was the reason).  Mine too was left overnight and I confess the temp did go up to 75 F (the night wasn't as cold as expected) but the rest of the procedure was as in the first attempt. So I will watch out for the things suggested as the reason for the 'wrong' result mention by others.  But as MrsKK says, don't be discouraged, if like me you have invested a fair sum of money in gathering the equipment it would be a shame to quit; I won't!

Offline Boofer

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Re: Grainy soft cheese
« Reply #6 on: April 30, 2013, 05:14:33 PM »
Eh, looks like today was a complete loss. I made bread too, really yummy whole wheat buttermilk honey bread. Cant get it out of the pan with out destroying it... The cooking Gods were not with me today...  >:(
I've had that happen when I didn't slip a piece of parchment paper into the bottom of the pan. Tough to remove the tenacious bread then. Arrggh!  ;)

-Boofer-
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