Sunday, 6th July 2014. I thought I would have a go at another Double Gloucester, procedure as follows.
Recipe from 200 Easy Cheeses
Bluetop standard 8 Litres
Meso 704 just less than a pinch
Calcium Chloride 2ml in 50ml water
Renco Rennet (65 IMCU) 5.6ml in 50ml water
Annatto 4 drops in 50ml water
9.48am milk at 32°C, add 704 starter an set for 60 minutes
10.35am add annatto*
10.52am add calcium chloride*
10.58am add rennet
Floc factor 3.5. Floc time 13.5 minutes = 47.25 minutes, giving curd cut time of 11.45am
11.45am clean break, cut curd to ¼" cubes
11.50am finish cut. Rest 15 minutes (temp had dropped to 30°C at this point so added a little heat from stove)
12.06pm start to raise temp to 37°C over a 45 min period. (for once this went well after a slow start) warmed in a water bath in the sink.
12.55pm temp bang on 37°C Curd size small, what I refer to as 'gruel'.
Rest 20 minutes
1.15pm drain into colander
1.15 return to pot and form pancake in bottom of pot, pushing down on curds by hand for 15 mins
1.34pm flip and repeat for 15 mins
1.49pm cut into four pieces and stack for 15 mins
2.05pm flip stack, leave for 15 mins until 2.20pm
2.20 Cut into 1" x ½" cubes and toss with salt
2.27 first press at 25kg for 30 mins
3.00pm redress and press at 30kg for 1 hour
4.00pm redress and press at 30kg until 5.00pm following day (still in press as I write)
*(note: I chose to add annatto and calcium chloride towards the end of the 1 hour inoculation, not after the one hour, at 47mins and 64 mins respectively. I understand annatto needs to be added 15 minutes before rennet. I didn't want to spin the innoculation out to 1 hour 20…as it happens it did spin out to 1 hour 10mins. I hope it does not upset the inoculation??!!)
