We've eaten over half of the last Gorgonzola I made, so it’s time for another. To the extent possible, I followed Jim Wallace’s recipe again. The main difference this time was that I used slightly under 1% Flora Danica mother cultures. (1 cube per gallon). Acidification was really slow, so next make I’ll go for a full 2% of the culture. I also decreased rennet to shoot for a 15 minute floc time.
Day 1Milk warmed to 87°F and CaCl added. pH 6.60
Added P. roqueforti and Flora Danica. pH was down .05 at ½ hour, so added 23 drops rennet. Floc time was 15 minutes, so cut curd at 1 hour. Rested 10 minutes.
Stirred for a little over 1 hour. pH at drain was 6.48. Bagged and drained over night. pH the next day was 4.82.
Day 2Pretty much the same routine, except I FORGOT the CaCl! I can’t really say the curd was any more fragile, but floc time with the same amount of rennet was a hair over 19 minutes.
Shooting for a pH of 5.9 at drain, but after 4 hours of intermittent stirring the pH had only dropped to 6.24 so I gave up
. That’s why I’m going with a full 2% of culture next go-round.
Milled day 1 curd to approximately thumbnail size.
Started filling mold with approximately 1/3 of the softer curd on the bottom. The next 1/3 of the soft curd surrounded all of the firm curd. The last 1/3 of the soft curd went on top. I had to press down gently to get everything into the mould.
After the mould was filled, flipped it about every half hour until bedtime. Continued flipping the next day, tapering off to every hour or 2.
This cheese is dry salted over 3 days, with total salt equal to 4% of the initial cheese weight. 50% of the salt is used on day 4. 30% of the salt is used on day 5, 20% of the salt is used on day 6. Each day’s salting was divided into morning and evening doses.
So, with a cheese weight of 2027 Grams, here is the salt schedule:
Day Side 1 (Morning) Side 2 (Evening)
4 25% of total or 20 grams 25% of total or 20 grams
5 15% of total, or 12 grams 15% of total, or 12 grams
6 10% of total, or 8 grams 10% of total, or 8 grams
I’ve salted the first side, so this will be a work in progress for a while. I’ll post some pics in a bit.
Larry
