Hi guys...
Just saw this post and wanted to respond.
Swiss is one of the cheeses I feel I have to do correctly before I can consider myself a true cheesemaker. I've been fighting this one for quite awhile but still have not found the success I'm looking for.
As for the aging aspect of a swiss style of cheese:
Well first of all, you HAVE to hit your Ph marks correctly during the make. If the Ph is off, even by a little, no eyes will form.
At the time of hooping the Ph should be at 6.3 - 6.4 and at brining the Ph should be at 5.4.
If you have hit the Ph targets then there is a good chance that the wheel will form eyes, but getting the RIGHT type of eyes is another story.
For the eyes to form you first need to give the cheese a week in a cool room (approx. 55 degrees), wiping daily with a saturated brine solution. This helps to form the rind that will handle the swelling.
After that the wheel is to be moved to an environment of 65 - 70 degrees and 85 -90 percent humidity. The kitchen works well for this as long as the cheese is covered to keep the humidity high.
During this "sweating phase", (that lasts for 3 - 4 weeks), the eyes will form in your cheese but like I said before.....forming the RIGHT eyes is the difficult part.
I have produced a lot of swiss cheeses that have the right flavor...the right texture, but not the right eyes.
Every example that I've made has produced a LOT of small eyes but none that are large and symmetrical, as they should be.
I've since found out that to form these large symmetrical eyes, one must press the curd "under whey" to seal the curd mass from any introduction of air. Air to a swiss is pretty much the kiss of death.
I plan on giving this method a try tomorrow morning and will post my findings after an 8 - 12 week aging period.
I'm really quite excited about this experiment. I've been planning on doing it for the past month but life has gotten in the way of my plans.
Hopefully nothing comes up tomorrow that will sidetrack me so that I can finally give this a try.
Swiss is NOT an easy cheese to make correctly, but it is a fun variety to experiment with.
On a difficulty scale of 1 to 10, I would put swiss at a 10.
Keep us posted on your efforts and I will do the same.
Hopefully by all of us working together we can get a handle on what it takes to make this cheese properly.
Thanks for the post..
Dave
