It seems a good cheese to experiment with due to short ripening time. So I decided to make this one with a combination of nonfat and cream. Where I live, I can find organic, not ultra-pasteurized, no additive cream (Clover-Stornetta brand) which they indicate is 40% fat. So 58 cups of nonfat and 6 cups of cream, makes 3.7% fat and 3.71 % protein and PF ratio of .99. I used 3/8 tsp Kazu as a starter again, trying to make the milk the only difference between this and last week's cheese. I used a bit more calcium chloride this time, because it was new milk to me, so 1 tsp for 4 gallons. I had a 15 time to flocculation so I was happy with that, though the clean break did not seem quite as solid as I am used to, so I gave it 5 mins extra beyond the 3x. Draining with the siphon pump was easy and clean! Further draining and cheddaring at one end of the perforated pan was easy. I may have let the cheddaring phase go on a bit long as I did not mill/salt until 5.5 pH. Final knit was very nice and did not require quite as much weight as last time. Final pH was the same 5.2, and final weight was almost exactly the same as last week, at 3#, 10 oz. Time from starter in to pressing was 6 hours, about the same as last week.
Learning to control the temperature of the water versus the milk in the Avantco food warmer is coming along. I did not overshoot the temperature, but it did take a bit longer than I would like for coming to temperature for initial warming and for cooking the curd.
