Some details and lessons learned:
After innoculation, I let the milk acidify for 30 min. Some recipes call for double this. I guess what I need to understand is what happens after 30 min. What milestone are we looking for as an indicator for when to add rennet?
I noticed that according to the
CHR Parmesan guidebook, the pH at the beginning of the rennet phase should be around pH6.45-6.5. My pH was down to pH6.45 berfore i even added the culture. I think i was a bit messed up from the get go. So, I am not sure what is up with that. Would CaCL2 acidify my milk?
I aslo suspect that I added too much culture, I added the following:
3/4 tsp TA61
3/4 tsp LH100
That is 1.5tsp of culture. Is that right?
My final pH was 5.90. I think that is too low.
One more thing, given that i am coming off a pretty wicked flu/cold/monkey virus/avian bird flu/ebola/polio/plague variant, my nose is not working well, so cannot tell if the off smell i detect is my defective sniffer, or real.