Help with overbrining Gouda?

[Stinky]

I woke up at 4 o'clock this morning to realize that the Gouda that should have gone out of its brine around 7 or 8 last night was still in. All in all, it got 16 hours of brining. It sinks in water. Right now it's in an anti-brine to draw the salt out for a few hours, and then I plan to rebrine it for the sake of the rind? Any ideas or thoughts?

[scasnerkay]

I have done the same thing. I did not re-brine and things were fine. As with most of my cheeses, I do tend to clean them with vinegar and salt, so that also helps harden the rind.

[Stinky]

So you just overbrined and aged it? Or did you put it in anti-brine?

[scasnerkay]

I did the anti-brine and then let it start aging.

[Stinky]

Okay. Well, it's out of the brine, where it was for maybe two hours. We'll see how it ends up.

I plan to make a separate thread for this, if that's okay.

[milkybar kid]

Anti-brine, a new one on me, i am guessing, plain water for a period of time ?.

[scasnerkay]

Follow the recipe for brine with water, calcium, vinegar but leave out the salt!

[Stinky]

Anti-brine, a new one on me, i am guessing, plain water for a period of time ?.

Like Susan said. With both brine and anti-brine, you add vinegar to get the ph to the same level as the cheese and calcium chloride to keep the water from pulling calcium from the cheese, thus making it softer.