Hello all
Well, today I am gonna try and tackle the curd kntting issue. I would love a good solid chunk of cheese when through.
List of Ingredients:- 6gal whole pasteurized/homogenized off the shelf milk (1.99/gall at SAMS Club)
- 3/8 tsp Choozit MA11
- 24 drops double strength Annatto (diluted in 2/3 cup distilled water)
- 3tsp CaCl2
- 1.5tsp veal rennet (diluted in 3/4 cup distilled water)
- 3.3oz of flaked salt
- 8 drops Annatto/gal
My Goals:- To make a cheddar that knits better
- To make a cheddar whose that has a richer color
- pH Marker: 6.15 at end of cook/scald
- pH Marker: 5.4-5.7 after salting
Here is what I am gonna try.- Still not sure on the Knitting
- 8 drops annatto/gal
Basic Process:- Add milk to vat, start heating to 90degF
- Add Annatto
- When milk is at 90, add Culture. Stir in for 1 min
- Wait 30 min then add CaCl2
- Wait 15 min then add Rennet Solution
- Wait 45 min or until clean break, cut curd, then let rest for 15min
- Stir curd and begin heating protocol from 90-100 degF That is 2 deg/5min
- Let sit at 100degF for 30 min.
- Drain curd, not too long to avoid matting
- place in pan, stir curds with fingers, avoid mashing
- Add salt in two phases, allowing for slower absorption
- Stir every 5 min for 1 hour
- place in 8"mould
- Press@2PSI for 15 min
- Remove from mould/flip/redress/re-mould
- Press@4PSI for 30 min
- Remove from mould/flip/redress/re-mould
- Press@8PSI for 2hours
- Remove from mould/flip/redress/re-mould
- Press@10PSI for 24 Hours
Here is how it is playing out in real-life:Time | Task | Water Temp | Milk Temp | pH |
6:13am | Add Color | 90 | 39 | 7.96 |
6:33am | Data point | 99 | 55 | 6.92 |
6:54am | Data point | 115 | 70 | 6.88 |
6:58am | Data point | 119 | 72 | 6.86 |
7:26am | Data point | 114 | 86 | 6.75 |
7:30am | Added Culture | 114 | 90 | 6.71 |
8:04am | Added CaCl2 | 114 | 93* | 6.61 |
8:19am | Added Rennet | 110 | 92* | 6.56 |
9:05am | Cut Curd | 105 | 91* | 6.57 |
9:30am | Cooking | 126 | 91 | 6.51 |
9:35am | Cooking | 130 | 93 | 6.46 |
9:40am | Cooking | 129 | 95 | 6.43 |
9:45am | Cooking | 125 | 97 | 6.42 |
9:50am | Cooking | 124 | 98 | 6.40 |
9:55am | Cooking | 124 | 100 | 6.36 |
10:00am | Cooking | 124 | 100 | 6.33 |
10:10am | Cooking | 124 | 100 | 6.29 |
10:20am | Cooking | 117 | 99 | 6.23 |
10:30am | Cooking | 117 | 100 | 6.17 |
10:35am | Started stir | 117 | 100 | 6.15 |
10:55am | Started stir | 117 | 100 | 5.99 |
11:14am | stirring | 100 | 100 | 5.70 |
11:20am | Added 3tsp salt** | 100 | 100 | 5.67 |
11:30am | Added 3tsp salt** | 100 | 100 | 5.65 |
11:44am | 1st press | 100 | 100 | NA |
Notes:*Damn I let it get too hot. Sloppy workmanship on my part
Took a long time to get to pH6.15 too long.
**Added salt a bit early (5.67 as opposed to 5.4 due to the extra time needed to acidify earlier. I needed to move the process along due to mositure issues. Curds seemed to be getting dry.)
There was a bit of white foam that came out during the initial press. Not sure what that is, or if that was an indicator that too much weight was being applied. But either way, i started off with a lot of wieght. I plan to eliminate the lack of weight as a source of the curd knitting issue with this one.
Wrap upI ended up putting this under much more weight than before. I really really really wanted to ensure that weight was NOT the reason the curds did not knit in the past. It is currently under 19PSI for 24 hours. Yes, 19PSI. That is about 950lbs on this 8inch wheel.
The Wheel looked very nice at the last flip. I liked the knit. However, I don't like the mottled look of the wheel. I think this mottling may be due to a milling error. I may have let some of my curds get too big. The following is from one of my cheese books.
"There is a practical upper limit to the cross-section of milled curd before salting for two reasons: (a) there is inadequate whey drainage after salting with large particles; (b) the larger the curd particles, the smaller is the surface/volume ratio. With larger particles, a higher salting rate is therefore required to achieve a given final level of S/M in the cheese. This increases the chance of seaminess and gives higher salt losses in the whey. The longer time required for salt penetration allows a greater development of acid in the centre of large curd particles than in smaller particles and this may result in a ‘mottled’ appearance of the final cheese."So, next time I will do 2 things:
-Add a bit more culture to speed up acidification.
-Mill the curds more uniformly.