Well, after reading a lot of folks pleasure at Caerphilly, I had a crack at one on the weekend. I am fortunate in that I was able to source fresh raw milk for this attempt. I used 15 litres for this attempt.
- Pasteurised the the milk and cooled to starting temp, 32 deg C
- added my starter culture and let rippen for 30 minutes, I also added a tiny amount of geo here to help with the flavour and later the rind development
- added rennet, floc factor of 4,
- once cutting the curd I let it rest for 5 min then gently stirred whilst raising the temp to 35 deg C over the next 20 min
- let curd rest for 45 min
- drained off the whey and hung the curd mass for 5 min to further drain
- placed mass back into tray to solidify
- went through a cheddaring process for around 40 min. flip drain, flip drain
- cut curd into chunks and added 15grams of salt and mixed through
- placed into mold
- pressed for 30 min
- remove, flip redress and press for 40 min
- remove, flip redress and press for 12 hours
- place in brine for 16 hours
- remove from brine, pat dry and place on rack to dry out. I flip it twice a day, basically when I get up in the morning before work, and when I get home at night
- once dry it will go into cheese fridge to work its magic
I will upload a photo of the cheese a little later.
Observations.
- flocculation method is just the best
- when I removed the cheese from the press the final time it seemed a little soft. It certainly didn't have any gaps and appeared to have knitted together well. It was a little lop sided as I think the follower didn't quite sit level on the way down
- upon removing the cheese from the brine it appeared to be a little slimy. It was a fresh brine made for this cheese
- the cheese seems to have firmed up a bit now after its first night drying out of the brine
looking forward to tasting.
Question:
there seems to be some who cheddar and some who don't this style of cheese. Is this a correct observation or I am not reading things correctly?
regardless, making milk solidify into additional edible product is fun.
FM