Author Topic: My third Gouda  (Read 2696 times)

Offline awakephd

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My third Gouda
« on: June 20, 2014, 04:16:48 PM »
I thought I'd try to document my third Gouda make ... partly so I can remember how I did it! My first two Goudas have been quite good -- er, goud. I need to buy some "real" gouda to compare it to, to see if it tastes "right" -- but I like the taste and texture very much, so I am continuing to make it.

All of the goudas, including this one, have been based on the recipe in the Ricki Carroll Home Cheesemaking book. The first I followed pretty exactly, using 175° water to wash the curds as specified. That seemed too hot, so the next gouda I made using 130° water, as found in a recipe on the Home Cheesemaking site. That seemed too cool, and required way too much water to get to the target temp of 100 - 102°. So this time I tried 150° water, and it was just right. I also played around with the recipe a bit.

Here is the protocol I followed:

3 gallons of P+H milk (Hunter Farms brand, from Harris Teeter, a local chain -- I've made all my cheese using this milk, with no failures thus far)
3/4 tsp CaCl
3/16 tsp MA011
1/8 tsp MD089 (this is a meso aroma culture -- first time I've tried adding it, so will be interested to see how the taste differs)
3/4 tsp liquid rennet

Heated milk to 90°, added culture, waited 5 minutes, stirred it in.
Cultured for 10 minutes (short! but that's what the RC recipe calls for)
Added CaCl diluted in water, stirred in
Added rennet diluted in water, stirred in
Allowed to set for 1 hour (long!! but again what is called for in the RC recipe)
Firm curd with clean break; cut vertically into 1/2" squares and allowed to heal for 5 minutes (first picture below)
Horizontally cut with cheese ladle and allow to heal for 5 minutes.
Gently stirred for 10 minutes
Drained 3 quarts of whey (second picture below)
Gradually added 3 quarts plus a bit of 150° water, bringing the temperature up to 102° over 15 minutes
Let curds sit for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent matting. At that point, curds felt right for draining.
Drained curds into cheesecloth-lined mold, then put mold back into whey with 4 pounds of weight for initial press of 15 minutes (third picture below)
Removed from whey and pressed for 20 minutes at 20 pounds
Redressed cheesecloth, turning the cheese over, and pressed for 30 minutes at 40 pounds
Redressed cheesecloth, turning the cheese over, and pressed for 16 hours at 50 pounds (fourth picture below)
Put into saturated brine for 12 hours, turning over after 6 hours
Removed, dried, and weighed at 2.874 pounds (typical yield for me using this milk) -- last picture below
Now drying on the mat; will age at least 3 months, possibly longer if I can stand it!



-- Andy

Digitalsmgital

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Re: My third Gouda
« Reply #1 on: June 20, 2014, 06:04:45 PM »
Nice! I like your press, and how you had to improvise so as to do the first pressing in the whey! How long do you age your goudas?

I have made three, two from P&H milk and one from raw. The P&H I ate young, around four months, the raw is going to age a year, if I can handle the wait!

Oh yeah, forgot about my first Gouda, a raw goat-milk success! That's four!

Offline awakephd

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Re: My third Gouda
« Reply #2 on: June 20, 2014, 08:16:50 PM »
Thanks! I made the press one weekend when I started into this hobby. It has worked well, though I wish in retrospect that I had made it just a teeny bit wider.

I have only aged the first two goudas 3 months each -- despite my best efforts to wait longer! Even at 3 months, they have been very tasty. I hope to age this one longer, a strategy that will be helped if I can keep a steady supply of Lancashires and other such quick-maturing cheeses in the pipeline.
-- Andy

Offline MacGruff

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Re: My third Gouda
« Reply #3 on: June 22, 2014, 12:03:23 AM »
Do you have the plans for your press? Can you please share them?

I have a press I made myself as well, but yours looks much nicer!

What wood did you use?

Offline awakephd

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Re: My third Gouda
« Reply #4 on: June 22, 2014, 03:00:46 AM »
Thanks! Attached are the plans I drew up in LibreCAD when I was designing the press. (Look for the press.pdf link, just above the first picture.) Obviously I based my design on the ubiquitous dutch-style press, and looked at many examples on the internet to glean ideas.

Not shown in the plans is the slot in the lever through which a 5/16" bolt passes to attach to the ram -- not shown, because when I drew the plans up, I hadn't quite figured that part out. As it turns out, the slot should begin 4.75" from the pivot hole, and extend about 1" in length -- but it won't hurt if the slot starts further to the left and extends further to the right.

I didn't get too fancy with the construction. I used glue and/or screws to assemble, plus a few brads applied with a pneumatic nailer to hold some joints while the glue dried. As for wood, I designed the press around some 1" x 2" poplar that I had on hand. I wasn't sure if it would stand up well to the usage, but so far it has performed splendidly. That said, hard maple would probably be the ideal wood for this.

I designed for a 2:1 mechanical advantage, and sized the end of the lever (turned round on my wood lathe) to take the weights from an old weight machine that we have. There is room to put as many as three weights on; I have two each 2.5 lb., 10 lb., and 25 lb. weights, plus 4 each 5 lb. weights, so I can assemble any press weight from 5 to 120 lbs in 5 lb. increments. I put a threaded insert into the end of the lever so that I could insert a screw and washer to keep the weights from sliding off the end. (I did go a little fancier there -- after I got tired of fiddling with the ordinary screw that I was using, I machined a knurled thumbscrew with integral washer to make it simpler to change the weights.)

Obviously, it would have been easy enough to adjust the plans to allow greater mechanical leverage, but since the rest of my equipment limits me to a maximum make of about 3.5 gallons, I don't anticipate needing a bigger press any time soon.

I've included some close-up pictures below that hopefully will help show my construction a little more clearly. One thing you will see is where I had to put a bit of a notch in the uprights -- my stainless steel draining pan, which began life as an inexpensive burner cover from Walmart, is just a wee bit wider than I made the press. I keep meaning to smooth out these notches so that they look like an intentional artistic statement rather than a quick hack to fix my short-sighted planning ... :)

-- Andy

JimSteel

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Re: My third Gouda
« Reply #5 on: June 22, 2014, 12:26:27 PM »
Looks really cool.  The press is quite im-press-ive...if I may say so

Pro tip: Make two goudas in close succession.  That way when you open one up 3 months later, you will still have the other to age a bit longer.

Offline MacGruff

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Re: My third Gouda
« Reply #6 on: June 23, 2014, 11:44:31 PM »
Cool!

Thanks.

Spoons

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Re: My third Gouda
« Reply #7 on: June 24, 2014, 12:04:27 AM »
Pro tip: Make two goudas in close succession.  That way when you open one up 3 months later, you will still have the other to age a bit longer.

Make that 4 goudas in close succession. There's simply never enough gouda in a cheese cave  ;)

Nice gouda make Awakephd! Nice press build too!!!

A cheese for you  :D

Offline awakephd

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Re: My third Gouda
« Reply #8 on: June 24, 2014, 01:16:29 PM »
Thanks for the cheese! I fully approve of the advice to make 2 - 4 in quick succession ... only problem is this annoying thing called work that keeps messing up my schedule. :) As a result, my cheese-making is more sporadic than I would like. Plus I keep trying new things -- for example, this weekend I made my first Manchego, partly in response to a friend's intense interest in that type of cheese. The make went well, but of course, we have to wait a while to find out if the result is any good ...
-- Andy